To the Void
by farewellblindgirl
Summary: As their working relationship continues to deteriorate, Castle and Beckett must chase a serial killer targeting the city's billionaires. Set late in S4, after Headhunters and The Limey. [Castle Summer Hiatus 2015 Ficathon Entry]
1. First Journal Entry

**A/N:** I haven't written a Castle Fic in quite awhile, so of course I dive in with a 50k case-fic [for the Castle Summer Hiatus 2015 Ficathon]. Takes place late in S4, about the time of Undead Again/Always...

* * *

I will kill the first one with air...

William Peterson hates driving. It was a waste of time, he once admitted to a colleague. He had a Maybach Mercedes with a driver on call. Why should he drive himself? And yet, there he will be, walking towards the BMW 740 (his idea of a middle class car) he'd drive the 8 blocks to his Central Park apartment. Driving was bad enough, but he certainly wasn't going to take a cab or the subway.

Peterson will be driving because, recently, a small group of concerned citizens have approached him about a possible mayoral run. Bloomberg had won, after all, so there was precedent for another billionaire, and Peterson has all the right credentials, especially in comparison to Weldon. He would have to tone down a bit of his more ostentatious habits; maybe skip the helicopter trips to the Hamptons for a while? Skip the stories about skiing in GStaad?

I am perfectly fine with all of this. Gives me an easier opportunity.

Peterson leaves his car in the same spot, near the far end of his trading firm's parking garage, away from the areas that were well lit and monitored by camera. It won't be difficult to get into the garage or the car, and then to wait for Peterson in the back of the BMW, directly behind the driver's seat, crouched forward, mostly in the footwell. I'll be hidden in the shadows. There will be a small chance he'll see me when he opens the door - the interior lights will come on immediately.

But he won't. He's spent his life removing anomalies, so that he's never distracted. There will be no reason to look for me, so he won't.

He will leave the elevator at five after seven, same as always, and use the key fob to open the door from a few feet away. He'll open the door and toss his briefcase in the passenger seat with the casual disinterest of anyone embarking on an unpleasant task. As soon as he sits, I'll have my left arm up around the headrest, pinning his head back. My right arm will come around and push something sharp right into the soft flesh below his jaw.

He will yelp, startled. He's a cerebral man, not used to anything physical. I'll pull my left arm down. "I have a gun pointed at your spine through the seat. You do anything I don't like, I'll make sure you never walk again," I'll tell him in a harsh whisper, not that he'd be likely to recognize my voice anyway. "You do anything I don't like, and you're dead."

"You aren't going to get..."

I could recite what he'll say verbatim, but what's the point? You know this part. You've seen a TV show. Most of our life is a cultural script we picked up from some screen. He'll beg, bribe, and threaten. Finally, he'll shut up.

Once the whining is done, I'l have him drive to a warehouse by the East River. The drive doesn't take long, though the wait will hurt, as this will be my most vulnerable time. It will take some unpleasant balancing to keep the syringe pinned to his neck with my body ducked low enough as not to be seen through the back windows. My quads will burn, but I'll handle it. He won't recognize the warehouse, even though he, or rather one of his holding companies, owns it. For him it's just an asset on paper, tied to something physical out the world he need not concern himself with. He won't be a hero. He'll drive out of the lot and across town without incident.

We will be at the warehouse thirty minutes later.

He'll pull through the loading door, and park. I'll have him grab his phone from the passenger seat, tell him what I want. He will transfer the funds for me.

"This won't work," he'll say, or something like it. "You'll need more than my authorization. You'll need..."

William Peterson is a lot things, but stupid isn't one of them. It will be around then that he'll realize who I am, or at least one of the few people I could possibly be. But it won't matter. He'll have sent the authorization, or I'll push until he does.

That's when I will jam the syringe into his carotid artery and push the plunger.

The syringe will be empty. Or rather, it will be filled with air. You know how nurses tap on the needle before an injection? They are removing the air. An air bubble in your bloodstream is like a little traveling bomb. I'll shove a massive one into his, and a few seconds later, it will hit his brain, causing a massive stroke.

A stroke is a risky way to kill someone. People survive them too often. But they are a great way, when they are as large as the one I will induce, to incapacitate someone. Once he is out, I will be able to leave my message with him, and then if I have to finish the job, I can do so simply by gently pinching his nose and holding his mouth shut. The rest will just be stage setting.

So why am I writing all of this down?

There is no sin greater than pride. Many a mission has been destroyed because someone felt a need to brag, even if just to a bartender over a whiskey. I am no different. I know my own sins. My mission is vital, and I feel a certain need to tell everyone about it, although those that fail to see what I am trying to accomplish may try to stop me. Will try to stop me. So I write here, where there is no connection to me, where it is too late to stop me, where it is too late to find me. I write here to burn off the urge to talk elsewhere.

And if nothing else, it helps me clear my head before I move on to the next one...


	2. Punching in a Dream

**Disclaimer:** I forgot to mention this at the start, but I don't own anything Castle related. Sorry for all the confusion to those of you who were certain that I did.

* * *

They'll get through  
They'll get you  
In the place that you feel it the most

When you're cornered  
When it's forming  
In the place that you wish was a ghost

I don't ever wanna be here  
Like punching in a dream breathing life into my nightmare

-Punching in a Dream, The Naked and the Famous

* * *

Although the call came in at a little after three in the morning, she was awake and answering the phone before the end of the second ring.

"Beckett."

Detective Kate Beckett listened as dispatch gave her the particulars of her next assignment. She managed to grab her notebook off the nightstand while keeping the phone pinned to her ear with her shoulder, and wrote down the address while still coming fully awake. She wasn't on call, so getting an assignment must mean that she was either about to dive into something particularly sensitive, or because the Twelfth Precinct Homicide Division of Manhattan was being overwhelmed with cases. For her own sanity, she hoped it was latter, but for the sake of her city, she hoped it was the former.

It wasn't good, in either case.

She hung up and sat back down slowly, trying to shake off the cotton-stuffing feeling in her head. For the last month, waking had been difficult. She had no desire to face the day, anymore.

Because she wasn't on call, she'd felt okay to drink the night before, though she was regretting that now. She was well short of a hangover - an alcoholic father has given her a lifetime's caution - so she always stopped after about two drinks, but the wine and the previous night's discussions with her friend Lanie had caused her to lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, sleep elusive. Now she was facing the day only half-recharged.

She paced her apartment for a second, navigating by memory. It was still well before dawn, so her bedroom was bathed with the normal black gold glow of the streetlights and other man-made stars of the city. It was in that light that she saw him most of the time now. He only came to her in her imagination anymore, in the long hours alone from dusk until dawn.

She took a deep breath and made the call.

Calling her partner, telling him that they had a case, it used to be the best part of her day. Now it was the worst, and she was not sure the term 'partner,' honorarily applied by heartily meant, was even appropriate anymore. She wasn't sure what Richard Castle was at this point, except maybe a memory. Or maybe ghost was a more accurate term. There, but not.

He took long enough to answer that she wondered if it would go to voicemail, but then she heard his voice over the phone, alert and wary. She couldn't tell if it was from being woken, or from being interrupted.

"We have a body?" he asked, no preamble.

She listened for the noises in the background, hating herself for doing so. But she heard nothing.

"Yeah, you're place is on my way, I'll pick you up."

"No, that's okay. I can skip this one."

She wondered if she should let him, since every time they were together now it felt tense and awkward. The slight thaw that occurred after she saved him from Ethan Slaughter had dissipated, and it was back to where she felt like she was conversing with a disinterested stranger at a party, every time she talked to him.

Yet, if he started skipping cases, he may never stop. They wouldn't burn out, as she'd once feared. They would ... he would ... just fade away.

"I wasn't on call," she said, without thinking. It seemed that the lizard part of her brain, driven by fear and loss, was controlling her words tonight.

There was dead air on his side of the phone, but just as she was about to explain, he got it. She heard a small 'oh' escape his lips. He'd been around NYPD politics long enough to know what it meant when they called in a senior detective on her day off.

"Okay, I'm in," he said, not quite with his old enthusiasm, but at least agreeing.

"I'll be by your place in fifteen."

"No, that's okay. I'll meet you there. Text me the address."

Her stomach fell out of her as she realized that he was making sure she avoided the loft. Her thoughts immediately flew to a veritable chorus line of blondes. Flight attendants, ex-wives, actresses... the exact details didn't matter. It could be Gina or the entire cast of the Rockettes. All that mattered was that it wasn't her.

Maybe she should take it as a small blessing that he wasn't rubbing it in her face anymore.

But he was supposed to be waiting. Why wasn't he waiting anymore?

"Okay," she said, and hung up. She double checked her notepad, texted him the necessary info with fumbling fingers. And then she got dressed.

As she locked her apartment, a thought struck her. It was too early for Castle to be able to use his car service, and even a cab would be hard to find. He was going to be driving over. She didn't want him pulling up to her crime scene, driving the Ferrari.

No, what she really didn't want was some random date of his driving him to the crime scene. She couldn't handle that again.

But she couldn't call him, ask him not to do that to her, so she just might have to.


	3. All I Do is Keep the Beat

I can't do the talk like they talk on TV  
And I can't do a love song like the way it's meant to be  
I can't do everything but I'd do anything for you  
I can't do anything except be in love with you

And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be  
All I do is keep the beat and bad company  
All I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme  
Julie I'd do the stars with you any time

-Romeo and Juliet, Dire Straits

* * *

Richard Castle leaned against the front corner panel of his silver SUV, parked where he could look back out over FDR drive for her familiar cruiser. Before dawn and nearly eighty degrees, it was shaping up to be a hot, wet, ugly day.

Beckett had been right - the crime scene was closer to his place than hers, so he's beaten her to it. It would've been easier to just have her drive him over, except that sitting next to her in a car, stuck in awkward longing for her, was a torture he couldn't really take anymore.

He tore his eyes away from the traffic and over to the techs buzzing about the crime scene, before settling on the silver mug that rested on the hood of his car. He'd made two travel mugs worth of coffee out of habit after she'd called, and had to very consciously choose not to pour her a mug, carry it to the car, and drive it over to the scene for her. He had to stop doing things like that, bringing her coffee, snacks, presents like he was some sort of ersatz boyfriend. He wasn't. He never was going to be. Doing things like making her coffee just clouded the issue.

At least, it did for him. For her - well, she probably saw it as part of his job, didn't she? Like he was her intern, maybe, and why shouldn't she think that? He wasn't a cop, wasn't her partner, wasn't her lover. He was more like a goofy college student at his first job, dumb enough to fall in love with the boss.

He took a sip, and it burned to hot against the roof of his mouth. Out of habit, he'd made it scalding like she liked, deferring his own preferences for hers.

He'd hoped to provoke some sort of reaction out of her with his trip to Vegas a few weeks earlier. It had been a boy's weekend, going with Connelly and Deever to see Stevie King's weird band perform. He hadn't explained that to her, however. He'd just left the details vague, hoping she'd show some interest, but she hadn't, even when he'd started to outright lie and make it sound like more of a bird dogging expedition. She hadn't cared.

He'd brought Jacinda, a flight attendant, back with him. That hadn't worked either, both because he didn't seem capable of participating in meaningless fun with a woman anymore, and because Beckett had been too busy being distracted by Blonde Bond, the Scotland Yard Wonder Shit to notice his own attempts to make her jealous anyway. He doubted she would've been jealous even without the presence of Hunt anyway.

She'd shown a little more fire when he'd drifted away from her professionally, towards Ethan Slaughter. But that had been idiotic for a number of reasons, not the least of which had been Slaughter himself. Besides, any professional protectiveness could easily be chalked up to the same emotions that surfaced when your pet accidentally peed on a friend's rug. You should've trained it better.

He was Kate's piddling puppy.

Luckily, Beckett's cruiser pulled up to where he was parked before he could think any more about his puppy analogy. She got out and gave him a small nod, her eyes getting tight for a second when she realized he only had one cup of coffee. Good, he thought, and then felt guilty, and then felt anger over his guilt. Why should he feel guilty about protecting himself, even if it mildly disappointed her? When did he decide her emotions were more important than his own?

He fell into step beside her as she walked over towards the perimeter tape. The humidity was already starting to pick up, with wet heat rising off the concrete of the parking lot they found themselves in. It suppressed his desire to drink his coffee.

"Hey Monroe," she said to the tall black uniformed officer as they approached. He tapped the edge of his cap in a mock salute and nodded. They ducked under the police tape Monroe held up for them.

"Beckett. Castle."

Castle smiled at the man, who'd always treated him as an actual member of the team. That sense of camaraderie disappeared once they were under the tape and walking towards the scene. Beckett made a bee-line towards where Esposito and Ryan were standing, but Castle decided to peel away, and headed instead towards the fire department that was surrounding the burned out hull of an expensive car. A BMW, based on the still visible kidney shaped grill.

"What happened?" he asked to the man wearing a Fire Captain's helmet.

"Kids up on the bridge spotted a fire down here. Someone torched this thing."

"Wasn't an accident?"

The Captain shook his head. "See how the passenger cabin is completely gone, even the frame?"

Castle nodded. The car, which he now recognized as a very recent model BMW 7 series, looked like it had been squished under a giant's foot. The blue body panels, already dark enough to be near black, were streaked with grime and ash from the fire, but the exposed frame was nearly a pearl white, like the exposed bones bones of a corpse. The hood and trunk were in reasonable shape, but the entire passenger cabin had been burned to the point that the only thing that remained were puddles of burnt glass and leather and metal along the bottom frame of the car. The fire had burned hot enough that even the roof had melted, until the car had collapsed inward under the remaining weight.

"Fire that hot has to have an accelerant. Entire passenger section was gone and the rest barely burned. Steel melts at 2800 degrees. This fire was intentional."

"Gas isn't enough?"

The Captain shook his head.

"And where's the body?"

"There was no body in the car," the Captain said, looking askance at Castle for the first time. He tilted his head in Beckett's direction. "Body was over there."

"Thanks," Castle said.

He watched Beckett as he walked towards her. Her back was rigid - even more rigid than normal, like someone had cattle prodded her.

She was staring down at the body, although the scene itself was hidden from his view, due to how she and the boys were standing. The sky was still the streaked grey of pre-dawn, so the techs had set up Klieg lights all around, all focused downward on the body, which was lying in the center of the small parking lot of the promenade.

Castle walked up next to her, where the lights were making it bright as midday, and froze. He saw why she was rigid.

The body was splayed out on the concrete in a horrific parody of the Vitruvian man. The corpse was still clothed - a pinstriped suit, french cuffed shirt, silk tie - but the shirt had been pulled open, and the undershirt cut away, to reveal the man's chest.

It was the chest that had all of them frozen. Into the center of the breastbone, the killer had carved a symbol. Castle didn't recognize it, but it seemed vaguely Chinese. Below that, along the fat layer around the man's stomach, the killer had carved a large '1%' in thick, deep letters. There was almost no blood, but Castle could see the striations of muscle tissue, and the yellow of fat, like candle tallow, in the surface below the cuts. The cuts themselves were smooth, deftly executed, as if the hand that made them hadn't had the slightest hesitation.

The face above it all was handsome, older, the man receding into grizzle rather than fat, as some men did when they aged. The face was slack, like a late night drunk, the dark hair with streaks of grey still perfectly combed.

Beckett managed to shake off her shock first. She looked over at the medical tech that was poking at the corpse. Castle didn't recognize him.

"Cause of death?" she asked.

"Don't know yet," the tech replied without looking up.

"So it wasn't these..." Beckett said, pointing at the corpse's chest with her pen, "cuts?"

"No, Detective. But ... they were done antemortem."

Castle shivered at that, at being carved up like an Easter ham.

"Defensive wounds?"

"None. No signs of binding either."

Beckett turned to Castle with a question in her eyes, but he just shook his head. How did someone get tortured without even trying to fight back? He had no more idea than she did.

"Time of death?"

"Lividity says some time around nine pm. But body temp says a little after 1am. I haven't figured out the discrepancy yet."

"So we have a four hour window last night. Wide, but it's a start, I guess."

"I'll narrow it down when I find COD."

"Do we have an ID?"

"William Peterson," Esposito said, "His wallet and everything were still on him."

Beckett shook her head. "What'r you thinking, Castle?"

He looked around. They were in a park - the promenade just south of the Williamsburg Bridge, just a few feet from a running trail that followed the East River. The sun was just starting to come up across the river, turning the whole thing into a cheap mirror. Joggers would be out soon. Behind them, the FDR rose over their heads, and traffic would be bad within another hour or so. They were in an incredibly public place, with giant lights and dozens of techs surrounding an obviously posed murder. People were going to see.

"This isn't going to be the only one," he said, finally.

"Maybe he was just sending a message."

"If you are sending a message, you need someone to send a message to."

As he said it, he pulled out his phone. He wanted a picture of the symbol on Peterson's chest. As he snapped the photo, Beckett called out.

"Castle!"

He showed her the screen. He'd cropped it so that only the symbol itself was visible, not the rest of the body.

"I just want to find what it means," he said.

She bit her lip for a second, then nodded. "I need to update Gates, if this is going to get into the press," she said. She turned away and walked closer to the river for some quiet.

Castle sat staring at the picture on his phone screen. A memory tickled at the back of his brain, but he couldn't chase it down. He turned his attention to Ryan and Esposito, who were walking around the body in expanding radii, searching the ground for clues. Castle knew they wouldn't find any. Whatever they might have tracked down was lost in the hellfires that had consumed the car. The burnt car itself was a message, a signal fire to draw people's attentions, sure, but also a taunt to the police. The smoke carried all of their clues to the sky, beyond their reach.

Castle was used to taking steps to make a mental map of a scene, but this time, it had all burnt itself into his brain without help.

Beckett finished her call, turned her head and caught Esposito and Ryan's attention. She pointed away from the river, back towards the precinct house, and the boys nodded. It was time to regroup and start the murder board.

"Come on, Castle," she said, "you can tell me your theories about that symbol in the car."

He shook his head, wiping away his musings.

"I drove, remember? I'm gonna run the car back to the loft. I'll meet you there soon."

For a brief second he saw something on her face, a look of something like regret. But then it cleared and he knew what it was - frustration that she'd have to wait a few extra minutes for him before she could start her murder board. He wasn't sure she wouldn't start it without him anyway.

Whatever they had been was broken. Maybe whatever they had been had just been an illusion anyway. It was time to recognize that. No, he thought. Right now it was time to solve a murder before another one happened - and he was sure another one was coming - and then, after that...

Well, he was pretty sure there was nothing after that.

* * *

 **A/N:** A few things - one, chapter lengths are a tad erratic, due to how this story breaks up. I'm sorry for that. Second, the songs that mark the head of each chapter - they may or may not align with the particular chapter at hand, but are meant to fit the story as a whole. I'm just going through the playlist that I set up to accompany the writing of this story.


	4. I Wish You Couldn't Figure Me Out

I wish you couldn't figure me out  
But you always wanna know what I was about  
I wish you'd hold my hand  
When I was upset  
I wish you'd never forget  
The look on my face when we first met

-Nicest Thing, Kate Nash

* * *

After the crime scene, Kate occupied herself for a few minutes by walking across the street from the precinct house and grabbing coffee while she waited for Castle to arrive. The crime scene had left her washed out and hollow, which worried her. Usually that feeling came later, when none of the evidence was quite cohering, and Castle was still grasping at odd theories to keep the team's brains firing. Except, he wasn't much for theories anymore, and the corpse they'd just seen had been particularly brutal.

It wasn't as bloodied, or as mangled, as some they'd seen. But there had been something about it - a sort of precise deliberation - that reminded her of only one prior case - 3XK. Except, even with that case, Jerry Tyson had run hot. Strangulation was personal, emotional. This had been cold, like someone had just needed a way to write a note, and had given no more thought to using a human body to do it than a normal person would worry about using a Post-it. Even in the muggy heat of the May morning, she'd shivered seeing it.

Castle was right, she thought. They had a serial killer on their hands.

Before they started the murder board, she logged onto her computer - put a general note for all precincts in the area to raise an alert if any cases came in similar to hers - carved symbols, posed bodies. She had a sick sense of dread that this was all just the start.

Castle showed up at her desk then, still wearing the disconnected look he'd had when she showed up at the crime scene, like he was only half present. But whatever worries she had about Castle, she had to table them and focus on the case, so she called the boys over, started laying out what they knew.

"William Peterson," she said, placing their victim on the board. "What do we know about this guy?"

Ryan spoke up. "Fifty-four. Divorced - the wife is apparently in Europe, but we're confirming. Daughter too, which we're tracking down. Works at some trading firm on Wall Street."

Castle, hanging back, and half sitting on her desk,let out a single, humorless, chuckle at that.

"What?" Beckett asked.

"He's the founder of Annapurna Trading."

"And that means something?" Espo asked.

Beckett watched as Castle shook his head, almost rolled his eyes. He'd picked that up from her, she thought briefly, wondering if that was why he suppressed it now. "Peterson is famous. Some sort of investing genius. Made billions before he was forty. There's talk that he will ... he would have ... run for mayor."

"Guy that powerful would have a lot of enemies," Espo said.

Ryan nodded. "Also explains the 1% thing on his stomach." He flipped open a file he had. "About that. The tech's did an estimate - they think it would take just about one pound's worth of flesh to carve out the 1% symbol they found."

"Our guy's got a thing against the rich," Espo replied.

"Guys, isn't unsupported theory Castle's thing?" she asked, trying to keep it light, but failing. Rather than teasing the boys out of speculation, she can see that it made Castle sound a bit like a crackpot, and made herself sound shrill. She shook her head, trying to erase what she'd said.

"Okay, if this guy was getting ready to run for mayor, he'd have some sort of exploratory committee formed. Why don't you two go talk to them. Castle and I will take Annapurna. And find the daughter, soon."

The boys nodded, went off to start their work. She turned to Castle and watched him for a minute, silently giving him a look - Are you in this or not? After a moment he seemed to nod, almost imperceptibly, but just enough. She nodded back.

"Come on, Castle. Let's go."

* * *

She had thought maybe they'd get a minute to talk in the car ride over to Annapurna's offices, but instead he immersed himself in his phone, and she couldn't seem to find a conversational way to draw him back to her. Traffic was already thick and oppressive, and everything was already starting to push on her, like the heat was making gravity stronger than normal. Or maybe it was the weight of the questions that sat stale on her tongue.

 _Did you get tired of waiting?_

 _Are we done?_

 _What did I do?_

 _Did you realize, finally, that I wasn't worth it?_

 _How do I fix this?_

The questions were all too raw and honest, and so she didn't ask any of them, let herself believe that it was because they were in the middle of a case, and it would be unprofessional. That was easier than accepting her cowardice.

"I got a hit on the symbol," he said, finally, as she turned into the parking garage near the office.

"How did you do that?"

"Asked the people in an online forum."

"Castle! You uploaded a crime scene photo to a public website?"

"No," he said, without any of his normal defensiveness, more as pure fact. "I'd thought I'd seen it before. It seemed Chinese. So I hunted around on the web, and then hit up a forum to get somebody to confirm for me."

She cursed herself immediately. Nearly a hundred cases together, she thought. He may not have been trained as a cop, but he knew by now what was okay, and what wasn't. She'd given him far too little credit for far too long.

"So what is it?" she asked, trying to put some apology into the question as she hunted for a parking spot.

"Air."

"Huh?"

"It's the Chinese symbol for air. Well, Japanese too. Seems they use the same alphabet, though they pronounce things differently."

"I wonder what air has to do with anything."

"Apparently in Japanese it's pronounced 'kaze,' like kamikaze. Maybe that's it? Something suicidal?"

"Peterson didn't kill himself."

"No, but I mean... maybe the killer is sort of saying he did? Like Peterson got himself killed by doing something wrong?"

"As in, Peterson knew what his transgression was" she said, parking the car, "Except, of course he did, didn't he? He was killed because he was rich."

"Rich people usually get killed for money."

"Maybe he was tortured for information or access to something."

"Except no defensive wounds, or signs of fighting back."

She bit back a curse. Castle was right. So instead she just shrugged and got out of the car. They fell into step as they crossed the lot towards the elevator. Normally, this was when Castle would start tying in alien abductions or CIA conspiracies. Instead he remained silent. She didn't know how to handle a mute Castle.

The silent treatment lasted through the elevator ride, the receptionist's station, and the conference room they were lead to to wait. Kate wanted to break the stalemate, but as they waited, Castle turned her back to her, staring instead at a large painting that dominated one wall. It was garish, a blend of yellow and sickly green, a triptych composed of three views of some man in slacks, legs crossed, sitting in a chair.

"I'm sorry, Castle," she finally settled on.

He looked over at his shoulder at her, with a look of such confusion she might as well have spoken Swahili. Were her apologies really that rare that he'd be confused by one? She shook her head.

"For thinking you'd steal evidence and put it online. I know you know better than that. So ... sorry. It was a good catch, the translation."

"Thanks," he said, and then turned back to the painting. She shivered slightly. Normally he would have followed up with a tease. No longer.

So she tried again. "That painting hypnotized you?"

He turned back to her. "It's Francis Bacon's painting of Lucian Freud. We passed a Chuck Close in the hallway, and there was a Rauschenberg at the reception desk. I'm thinking we've seen 200 million or more in art in the last five minutes."

"So?" she asked, simultaneously thrilled and sick at the notion she was standing next to hundreds of millions of dollars in paintings.

"If you needed money, stealing one of these would be a lot easier than whatever happened to Peterson."

"Maybe our killer didn't know. Maybe they aren't the art expert you or whoever this office's collector is," she said with a shrug.

"That would be our president, Ellen Kriesberg," said a well-dressed man as he pushed through the glass doors of the conference room. "I'm Allen Beall, general council for Annapurna."

He waved towards the seats, after shaking their hands, and sat opposite them at the large conference table. Kate chose her chair so that the grim paintings would be at her back.

"I've informed our staff about William's ... about what happened to him. Do you have any information about his killer, yet?"

Beckett shook her head. "We're just trying to establish some facts. When did Mr. Peterson leave last night?"

"7pm. Bill kept a very tight routine. He came in at 5:45am every morning and left at exactly 7pm every night if he didn't have any social obligations."

"Any enemies?"

"The man was a billionaire. You don't build a fortune like that without some animosity following you around. But, the type of enemies that Annapurna created... they tend to fight their battles in litigation."

"So you're a busy man."

Beall nodded with a chagrined smile, "But our litigation involved Annapurna, not Bill himself."

"And what happens to Mr. Peterson's fortune now?"

"Um," Beall said, "I don't know exactly. His personal attorneys handled his will. But I was taken to believe this was a mugging, not personal?"

"No. He was tortured, his car burned, but nothing stolen."

"That's..." Beall didn't finish, turning white. He put his fist to his mouth for a second. After he'd collected himself, he continued, "Even then, I'd doubt anyone could do that to get ahold of his personal fortune. I didn't work on his will, but I know his attorneys. There would have to be some other reason for this."

She nodded in acknowledgement. Annapurna seemed like a dry well.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Beall," Beckett said, standing up. The two men rose with her. She shook Beall's hand, and then Castle did as well.

Beall handed her a card. "If you need anything more from me or Annapurna, please call my direct line. We'll do whatever we can."

As she went to leave, Castle spoke for the first time. "Did Peterson always drive?"

"Ah, no," Beall said, "that was a new thing. Last week or two. He had a personal car and driver he used before that."

"And who'd know he switched to driving?"

"Um, I can't say for certain, but..."

"Someone that would have to know him somewhat well."

Beall didn't say anything, but Beckett could tell he agreed.

* * *

On the way back to the car, Beckett diverted them to the Annapurna floor of the parking garage.

"You're just full of good catches today," she said.

"What's that?"

"The catch - about the car," she shook her head as she finished. It was odd to on different wavelengths, at least about a case. Their personal disconnected was seeping into their work.

Castle just nodded. He looked at the ceiling. "No cameras around. Great place to catch Peterson," he said. "No one around that late, no cameras. He hasn't been coming here long enough to be comfortable with the area."

"Abducted here, killed somewhere else, dropped in the promenade. This is getting complicated."

"Killed somewhere else?"

"Tech's found no blood splatter, no trace. Body was dumped."

He nodded. "So abducted here, killed in the car, he and the car are dropped at the promenade."

She agreed on the car. It fit, made sense with the torching. Her thoughts turned back to the 1% symbol carved in Peterson's stomach. Everything still pointed towards a messaging killing. Maybe political? "Seems a bit precise and targeted for the Takeover crowd," she said, almost without thinking it through.

"Think it's the Takeover crowd? Like the bombing?"

She thought back to the bombing case they'd dealt with last month. That had been about the time that Castle had started his slow migration out of her life. She hoped this case wasn't connected, wouldn't push him any further away. But she looked over at him, saw how shuttered his eyes had become, as if they were strangers. Had that become worse, or was she just noticing?

"I don't think we're going to find what we need here," he said, leaving to head to the cruiser.

All she could do was follow.


	5. I Will Give Up This Fight

I'll close my eyes, then I won't see  
The love you don't feel when you're holding me  
Morning will come and I'll do what's right  
Just give me till then to give up this fight  
And I will give up this fight  
'Cause I can't make you love me if you don't  
-I Can't Make You Love Me, Bonnie Raitt

* * *

Back at the precinct, Castle watched as Beckett updated the Captain, then reconvened the team to update the murder board.

"So, this guy's committee said he had a pretty good shot at mayor," Esposito said, "Guess your boy might be gone soon, eh, Castle?"

Castle smirked, "Bob's a fighter. Besides, aren't these guys paid to be confident?"

"They may have had right to be," Ryan said, "Peterson was squeaky clean."

"Our interview said different. Said Peterson's enemies were the suing kind," Beckett added.

"Annapurna got sued dozens of times," Ryan said, flipping through his notebook, "Former traders, other hedge funds, that kind of thing. But Annapurna won every time. And Peterson himself was never implicated in anything."

"Political enemies?"

Ryan shook his head. "Republicans loved him, Democrats had just recently learned about him. Dead ends all around."

Beckett noted it all on the board, but didn't look hopeful. "Okay, what about family?"

"Ex-wife, confirmed to be in London last night, but by all accounts their divorce and relationship were amicable anyway. Daughter's doing a year abroad, teaching English in Tokyo. The car at the scene belonged to her, by the way. Scotland Yard notified the ex this morning."

"Any girlfriends, boyfriends, anything?" Beckett asked, straining for any sort of lead.

"Nah," Espo said, "some small mentions of stuff, here and there over the last few years. Last year or so though, nothing. This guy's all business, like the dullest billionaire in the world."

"You'd prefer that we found Richard Branson in that parking lot?"

Espo shook his head with a half chuckle.

"Okay," Beckett said. "Contact Peterson's lawyer, see who's named in the will. Only three reasons for murder - love, money, or to hide another crime. Let's see if this is simply a case of the second one. Pull a warrant for the will. Let's see if we can find someone with something to gain when Peterson died."

Beckett's comment took Castle back. His late friend Stephen had said something similar, years earlier, about another odd case where nothing was what it seemed. And like now, his relationship with Beckett then had been strained to the limit, his desire to cut and run high. Of course, that case had ended with Castle having to watch Beckett disappear with Demming, and him falling back into his own disastrous round two with his ex-wife. He'd thought that had been the low point of his relationship with Beckett. And yet, now was worse.

Now, he had experience in trying to get over her. And he knew he never would.

"Where'd you go?" Beckett asked. He looked up to see her standing over him as he leaned against her desk. The boys had headed off without him noticing.

He had no desire to answer her question with the truth, so he deflected.

"I just keep thinking, there's got to be another body out there, somewhere."

"I know. Everything we find seems to point to this not being about Peterson, personally."

"It's like shades of Tyson, or something," he said.

"I thought the same thing, earlier," she said, drifting off. They were both thinking back to that night at the cheap motel, when things had almost ended. He started to drift into his own remembered failures when she spoke again, "... you know, Castle, you figured out Tyson's story, you'll figure this one out too."

"Yeah, too late to stop him."

Neither of them spoke for a minute after that. Castle wondered how they'd managed to pick up a case that was like a guided tour through all of his worst moments on the job.

"Come on, Castle. The boys are checking out the will. It's been hours. Let's get some lunch."

He noted the odd role reversal, was oddly charmed by it for a second. But the image of being her little puppy dog was still playing in his head.

"I... ah... can't. I have to swing by Alexis' school at some point today and pay for her graduation robes."

"Oh. Okay. Want me to..." she trailed off, shook her head, restarted, "You'll be back this afternoon?"

He nodded, happy that she hadn't called him on his lie. He stood up, nodded to the elevator, and left before she could stop him.

On the ride down, he wondered how he could burn a few hours before coming back. Could he think up some sort of fake emergency, so he wouldn't have to come back at all? He didn't really think he could handle being around her anymore, but he did want to see how this case ended.

He wandered down the street to a little Greek place that Beckett hated, so that he knew she wouldn't find him. He ordered without thought, collapsed into only free booth without seeing any of what was around him.

He had promised himself he would stick with shadowing her merely a month ago, happy in the knowledge he was actually helping people. But he kept trying ways to take the edge off, to curb the little bits of electricity he felt around her, and the shame that came from knowing it wasn't real. And if he couldn't find a way stop his traitorous heart, so that he could work with her without it hurting, then he wasn't sure he could do the job at all, anymore.

He could accept that she didn't love him. It caused a dull ache that seemed to take over his very sense of being, of course, but his rational mind knew that she couldn't choose to love him any more than he could choose not to love her. But the way she used her knowledge of his feelings to drag him along hurt. He wasn't sure he could forgive her for that. Why did she give him her little speech on the swings? Why did she flirt with him? Why, if she remembered, didn't she sit him down and say she couldn't reciprocate?

Because she wanted him in her orbit, wanted him under her control, to use as she needed.

The problem was, even knowing he was being manipulated, he'd still follow her around. Because he couldn't seem to let go.

Unless, maybe, he let go entirely.

He could quit.

He had to quit.

This had to be his last case.


	6. Third Journal Entry

**Disclaimer:** I own magic beans, but not Castle. Actually, I don't own any beans either.

* * *

I will kill the third one with fire.

Peter Marshall is a real estate developer, made his fortune on gentrifying neighborhoods around the city. A polite term for replacing poor black people with desirable white ones. Marshall isn't the anal retentive jackass that Peterson is, so he's harder to track. But his job takes him all over the city to abandoned buildings, tenements, and lots of other easy places to get him alone. And I know the building that he just bought.

Harder part is where to leave him. But I've found that. I can leave him right where I kill him, right above the heads of a group of unsuspecting idiots. The timing is a little tight, but manageable.

He'll visit the old garment factory late in the afternoon, want to see it near the golden hour, so he can picture how he'll break it up into high end lofts. It's a little 'hands on' for a billionaire real estate mogul, but he pictures himself more Frank Gehry than Donald Trump. He'll get lost in thought, imagining himself a sort of builder for the ages, rather than a mere parasite.

I won't need to be as delicate with him as Peterson, but I'll have to be quick like Jameson. Fire is a simpler killer than air or water. A blow to the back of the head will put him under easily enough. I'll wait until he's on the roof to do so.

He'll have to be bound. When I set him on fire, he'll wake and struggle.

Finding the flame retardant gel was the hardest part. Luckily, I won't need a lot. Just enough so everyone can see my message.

I'll have to stay long enough to put out the fire. The smell will be difficult to put up with, but we all suffer for our craft. It's supposed to rain, though, which might do my work for me. But I can't count on it.

I wonder who will find him. Claudia probably, or Hunter, ducking off for a smoke.

Peterson is the hardest one. Jameson is simple. Marshall won't be too bad. Crossing the hump, as it were.

I won't get to play as much as I will with the first one. But once Peterson is dead, the clock starts, and I won't have much time. So the rest of them had to be made a bit simpler.

I feel like I'm short changing myself a bit with Marshall, like Jameson before, but at least I will be well rested. The police won't be able to say the same.

* * *

 **A/N:** To make up for short chapters, I figured I'd publish back to back


	7. How Close Am I To Losing You

Today you were far away  
and I didn't ask you why  
What could I say  
I was far away  
You just walked away  
and I just watched you  
What could I say

How close am I to losing you  
-About Today, The National

* * *

Beckett watched Castle go with a sick sense of dread, like it would be the last time she saw him. She didn't fully believe that he was leaving to go to Alexis' school, but she couldn't call him on it either, though maybe she should. She was halfway up and ready to chase him down when her desk phone rang. She bit back her anger and chose the phone.

"Beckett."

"I got some information on your victim," Lanie said.

Beckett turned back to the elevator, but the doors were closed and Castle gone. She didn't think she'd be able to catch him.

"Okay, I'll be right down."

A few minutes later, she walked into the morgue alone to meet up with her friend. Lanie Parish was in her normal location, leaning over Peterson's body, which was uncovered on the slab, his skin white with rictus and the preservatives.

"I didn't think you were working today," Beckett said. Lanie had had several drinks when she'd come over to Kate's the night before, since neither woman was on call. They'd spent another of many evenings talking about Castle, yet Beckett was no closer to knowing what to do. She shook that off, now was not the time.

"I didn't think you were working either, but when I heard you got pulled in," Lanie said and then shrugged. "I figured you could use some help. Childs is okay, but he's new."

Kate nodded. She hadn't remembered his name at the crime scene.

"Hey, where's Castle?" Lanie asked.

Kate shrugged. "Some school thing for Alexis' graduation."

"Not like your boy to miss out on something like this."

Kate gave Lanie a look, and Lanie almost shrugged. Instead she turned back to the body.

"So, I have cause of death for you. Take a look at his neck," Lanie said, pointing her delicate latex clad finger at a small spot where the neck and jaw met. Beckett leaned in closer to look.

Beckett listened as Lanie laid everything out for her. Beckett shook her head. This case kept getting weirder and weirder. She'd have to tell the boys, and Castle, if he showed up, what they'd found.

* * *

Beckett watched as Castle walked slowly back into the precinct late in the day. That seemed to be all she did anymore - watch him. She knew he'd been stalling, but decided not to call him on it. She'd spent so much of their time together calling him on non-existent transgressions, she needed to excuse him some actual ones. Besides, it might help whatever funk he'd been in lately to give him some latitude.

Or gratitude, she supposed.

"Everything ready for graduation?" she asked.

"Huh? Oh ... yeah. All arranged."

"She made valedictorian, didn't she?"

He nodded, but didn't expand. "Any news on the case?"

"A few things," she said, disappointed that she'd been unable to draw him out. The more she tried to pull, the more he seemed to push. She moved towards the murder board when she noticed he was avoiding his chair. She waved the boys over, got ready to recap the case. They'd heard it all already, but they were a team - they did this together - all four of them, as long as she could hold them together.

"Cause of death was suffocation."

"I thought the M.E. didn't find any marks?" Castle asked.

"Our victim suffered a stroke around 10pm. Lanie found a puncture mark on Peterson's neck. She believes the murderer injected a bubble of air into Peterson's bloodstream, inducing a stroke. Peterson was incapacitated, which is why he was able to cut Peterson up and then smother him without a struggle."

"So our killer knew his stuff," Ryan said.

"Odd form of attack for a professional," Esposito explained, "you'd have to get in real close to your victim and hit a precise spot. Knife's easier, if you're that close."

"Yes, but given the symbol carved in Peterson's chest, the form of killing must be symbolic," Castle said.

"Killed with air," Beckett said.

"Exactly."

"Given that nothing interesting turned up in the will," Ryan said, "we're pretty much back at square one on the serial killer angle."

"There was nothing in the will?" Beckett asked, "warrant came back that quick?"

"Nah," Espo said, "but the law firm was willing to walk us through everything in Peterson's case."

"Well, almost everything," Ryan said. "The will itself was pretty boilerplate, or at least as boilerplate as a billion dollar fortune can get. His wife and daughter had already been set up with decent sized fortunes when they divorced and the daughter turned twenty-one, so they weren't named beyond some property he owned. Almost everything went to a trust."

"And who gets the trust?"

"Well, apparently that part is private, so they couldn't share, not until the warrant comes in. We're still trying to get it pulled, but the will has been in place for years, so..."

"Okay," Beckett said, after Ryan trailed off. A trust set up years ago was unlikely to all of a sudden become a reason for murder. "It's getting late. Why don't we call it a day?" They'd lost more of the day than she'd like, but she hoped whatever time she'd let Castle steal would help, later on. Half of Castle at half strength was better than no Castle at all, and she was starting to realize that no Castle at all was a real possibility. And they were getting to the point where Castle needed to start throwing out some crazy theories, and fast.

The boys nodded, both jumped at the opportunity to leave. Castle also stood up, but Kate reached out, put her arm on his shoulder. He went back to leaning against the desk.

"Gotta second?"

When he nodded, she walked towards the break room, but stopped herself. She had to stop leading and just expecting he'd follow. Instead, she waited until they were side by side, and she walked with him.

"So what do you want, Beckett?" he asked once they were alone in the break room.

"You here for this?"

He looked at her, confused.

"It's just, no Mayan Death Cults, no CIA conspiracies ... you haven't been, you know, you... for weeks."

"I thought you hated all of my dumb theories."

"I don't hate anything about you, Castle."

He started to pace around, not looking at her. She sat and waited, even though she wanted to reach out and grab him, shake some words out of him.

"I've been thinking..." he started, rubbing his neck idly with the back of his hand. His pacing had slowed, but he wouldn't look at her. "Maybe I've outlived my usefulness here."

He might as well have kicked her in the stomach. She stepped towards him and stopped. She froze, one arm clutching tight around herself, the other hand unable to find a place to rest.

"Are you quitting?" she asked, barely able to breathe.

"I think it's time, don't you?" Although he was taller than her, he seemed to be looking up at her through lidded eyes.

"What happened to the Castle that bragged about solving cases while being held hostage? The perfect partner?"

"Well, I mean, we're not actually partners, are we?"

She stepped towards him, instinctive in her need to ease the pain she saw stretched across his brow. She'd caused this. She still didn't know what the final cause was, the proverbial straw, but it was obvious that she'd spent too many years pushing him away as a defense mechanism, without ever noticing that she was slowly eating away at his ego in the process. She stepped in front of him, stopping his pacing. She wanted to cradle his head, caress away the worry she saw in his face. Instead, she placed her hands on his arms, so that he'd be forced to look at her.

"Yes, Castle. We are partners. You're the best partner I could ever hope for. Look, I don't know what's been going on these last few weeks, but the precinct needs you."

"Ah, the precinct needs me. Is that it?" he asked, and she could hear the eery echoes of an old conversation from a year ago, when he'd come pleading to her to drop her mother's case. She knew the words she had wanted to hear from him back then. She'd wanted to hear his need, not everyone else's. Was this the same as that? Did he not know? She didn't know if she could give him everything, yet. But she knew she could give more than she had in the past.

"Not just the precinct," she said, further invading his personal space so he couldn't look at anything but her. She wouldn't let him look away. "I need you, Castle. I do. I'm sorry for all the times I made you doubt that."

He stood there, staring at her as she stared at him, hoping she was showing him whatever he needed to see in her eyes. She felt something loosen in him, the muscles of his forearms relax slightly under her fingers.

"I need to ask you something," he said.

She looked down, not sure what he'd ask or if she'd be able to answer. But she needed to try. She looked back up.

Which was when Esposito ducked his head into the room. He, mercifully, made no mention about how close they stood to each other.

"Guys, our killer struck again. We got another body."

She looked over at Espo, wondering if he'd saved her or doomed her. She nodded. "We'll be right there, Javi."

She looked back at Castle. "You still with us, Castle?"

"Can't do this without your partner," he said, with about half of his normal energy. It was a start, she thought. It was a start. She'd take it.

* * *

 **A/N:** Casefic isn't my strong suit, so this has been tougher to write than expected. What I'm saying is, thank you for all the support.

...and, oh yeah, I don't own this. I always forget that part.


	8. Wouldn't Turn Around and Break It

**Disclaimer:** I own none of the things

Anyone who's ever had a heart  
Wouldn't turn around and break it  
and anyone who's ever played a part  
Wouldn't turn around and hate it  
-Sweet Jane, Cowboy Junkies

* * *

Was it enough? Of course not. So why did it feel like enough?

Why did he feel like himself again?

Beckett hadn't given him much in the breakroom, but she'd given him something. She'd given him enough to remember that while she might be a lot of things, Kate Beckett wasn't cruel. She wasn't using him, at least not intentionally, at least not like he'd feared.

Sure, she was still lying to him, and, yes, she didn't love him, but her reasons were probably noble in their intention, if not their execution. He could live with that, at least for a little while longer. At least long enough not to make hasty decisions.

He still wasn't sure how he could manage to work beside her and hold back that he was in love with her, but... well, he'd done that for years, already, right?

He could try again. He really would miss the job if he gave up now.

He was stuck. But it didn't feel like stuck, for once.

The drive over to the crime scene had been easier than expected. He felt less tense around her than he had in the past few days. Sure, he hadn't gotten to ask the question he really needed to ask, but at least he could see a path to get there, for once.

They'd left the conversation light on the way over. Sometime after he'd returned to the station, the sky had opened up, and now everything was streaky and grey outside of the windshield. The rain was bad enough that he had wanted her to focus on the road.

The body had been found on the roof of a garment factory that had been left unoccupied for the last few years, stuck in the dead space between the Garment District and Hell's Kitchen. They'd taken an industrial elevator up to the roof, where they had met up with Esposito and Ryan.

"So what do we know so far?" Beckett said, trying to crowd under an awning where Ryan and Espo were trying to hide from the weather. Castle looked around the wide flat expanse of rooftop that looked out towards the Empire State Building. Through the garbage and discarded construction materials, he could picture what would have become a rooftop deck, once the building was inevitably refurbished.

"We got bad news," Espo said. They all had to yell, with the rain coming hard and fast onto the corrugated steal above their heads. Castle was half soaked through with surprisingly cold rain, and yet still warm from the day's heat rising off the black tar under his feet. His pants were plastered to his legs and his calves were starting to itch.

"You mean beyond the fact that the rain is washing away all of our evidence?"

"Yeah, boss," Esposito continued. "Apparently the body was found before the rain started."

Castle watched a brief flash of anger cross her features. "By whom?"

"Group of college kids. Had some sort of pop-up rave here. Someone came up here to smoke, found the body."

"Okay."

"Yeah, but then they decided to clear out, get everyone out of here before calling it in from a payphone down the street. So we're running an hour or two behind where we could be."

"And it's our guy?"

"See for yourself."

Beckett nodded to Castle, and he followed her over to the body, trying to duck down and keep his head out of the rain, as if there were a way to do so in the deluge.

They both knelt when they got to the body, so they'd be close enough to hear Lanie, who was angrily prodding at the body. This one was posed just like the first. Vitruvian man, clothes on, chest exposed. A different Chinese carving on the chest, though the 1% was the same. Castle noted that the cuts were less clean this time around, and that the arms and legs were bound with wire to the bolts embedded in the roof. Water was filling the victim's mouth, as well as the deep ravines cut into his chest.

The main difference, though, was how most of the body was burned. The arms, legs, head - all blackened, the last bits of skin and fat and hair sloughing off the body in the rain. The face was half gone, but the jaw was open, the head stuck in an eternal scream. Everything was burnt, save the chest and stomach, which were still clean and pink and gleaming. In comparison to the black wax paper look of the limbs, the man's chest looked like the skin of a newborn baby.

"How the hell does a body burn like this?" Beckett asked Lanie, her finger tracing the line between burnt and unburnt skin.

"I'm not an expert in these things, but I'm thinking it has to do with this gel all over the chest," she replied, swiping a bit of the offending material off the corpse's skin with her pen.

"It's a flame retardant gel," Castle said.

"How do you know that?" Beckett asked.

He shrugged. He didn't have a clue where half the facts in his head came from. But he'd seen it before. "Stunt men and race car drivers use it."

She made a note in her notebook. Something for them to track down, he thought. He pulled out a pen, drew the symbol from the chest on his hand. Beckett watched him.

"Fire?" she asked.

"That's what I'm guessing," he said back. "But I'll find out."

She nodded, looked back at the body. "Was fire the cause of death?"

"I'm pretty sure, yes," Lanie said over the roar of the rain, "Based on the damage around the wrists and ankles, he was alive when he was set on fire. He struggled for a long time."

Castle noticed that the normally impervious medical examiner was rather subdued as she said it. There was just something about this case that seemed to make everyone feel off, even if no one could consciously acknowledge it. He looked at the corpse's wrist, saw how, through the burnt skin, the wire had cut deep enough to embed itself in the space between the small bones of the wrist joint. Their victim had struggled hard.

"Time of death?"

"I can't guess, right now, Kate. The weather is playing havoc with body temp. Maybe when I get the body back to the morgue?"

Beckett nodded, and then they ran back to the awning, although they were both completely drenched. "Lanie can't give us time of death. When was the body found?"

"Based on the time it was called in, I'd guess around 9pm," Ryan said.

"Peterson was killed about the same time last night. This guy seems to be working on a twenty-four hour timeframe. Wonder if that's significant," Castle said.

"It's damned fast," Espo replied.

Beckett nodded in agreement. "And it doesn't give us a lot of time. Assume the next one is twenty some hours away. Do we have an ID?"

"Same as before - everything was found with the body. Killer was kind enough to toss the wallet and phone a few feet away so they wouldn't burn," Ryan said.

"He wants us to know who he's killing."

"Appears that way. License is for a Peter Marshall. Fifty three. Real Estate Developer. He owns this building. And he's a billionaire, just like Peterson."

"Family?"

Ryan shook his head, no.

"Okay," Beckett said, "find out if there is anything meaningful about this building. And figure out if there is a connection between him and Peterson besides just the billionaire thing. Castle and I will update Gates, see if we can get more people on this. Here on out, every minute counts."

Everyone nodded.

* * *

"What about a chemist?"

Beckett looked over at him. They were in the factory on the top floor below the roof-top crime scene, both scanning the area with flashlights. The detritus of an abandoned party was strewn over far older remnants of the building's previous life making clothing. Castle wondered, had the body burned as college kids danced around on Ecstasy and MDMA? Had they been horrified when they'd found the body? No one would know, since not one of them had had the courage to do the right thing, stick around, and help the police out.

Where they Columbia kids? It was the closest. Was this the den he was sending his baby into?

He shook off the thought, realizing Beckett was staring at him, a question on her face. Why? Oh yeah, his theory.

"A chemist - he had access and knowledge of flame retardant gels and an accelerant powerful enough to melt the car."

"A little prosaic as far as Castle theories, but it works."

"Or a firefighter, mad at the recent pension cuts," he said.

He realized a second late that attacking the fire department was dangerously close to attacking the police department, but Beckett didn't react. She stood there, thinking for a moment.

"Possible, I guess. But wouldn't you go after city officials, if that was your motive?"

He nodded, went back to looking around the open space for some bit of evidence. After a minute or two of wordless searching, he had another thought.

"Which one is next? Earth or Water?"

"Let's make sure there isn't a next," she said.

"Of course, but... maybe there is an order to these things, right? He's setting up rather elaborate crime scenes. If we can't track him through his connections or his motive, at least we could try chasing his methods."

She stood stock still long enough that Castle could start counting the seconds in his head. He could tell she was wrestling with something.

"We're twenty four hours in. Two crime scenes. And we haven't found a thing this guy hasn't wanted us to find."

He heard what she wasn't saying. The guy they were chasing seemed to be two steps ahead of them. He was worried too. Most murder cases came down to what happened in that first twenty four hours, otherwise they'd take years to put together properly. They didn't have years.

"Everyone screws up eventually, Kate. Things get missed. Lies get exposed. This guy is operating on an extremely fast timeline. He'll screw up, somewhere."

She nodded, started walking towards the elevator. He'd said it trying to help, but he felt worse, and guessing by the way her eyes had shuttered, she did too.


	9. Three Wasted Years, Wasting Time

I can't keep up  
'Cause you're so far gone  
And it's all too much hindsight  
Three wasted years, wasting time  
As the hunger pains grow inside

-Hindsight, Death Cab for Cutie

* * *

It had annoyed her, once upon a time, they way that Castle always seemed to know a guy. But at that moment, she was rather grateful.

The four of them were gathered in the conference room, the table piled high in the middle with papers and laptops and, most importantly, Chinese food from a place that delivered after 2am. Castle's doing. As she grabbed another Mu Shu pancake, she decided she didn't care who he'd had to beg, bribe, or sleep with to get them food so late. Between trying to figure out the case and figure out Castle, she'd forgotten to eat lunch.

They were hunting for connections between their victims, which was proving to be an unfortunately fruitful line of inquiry. Obviously, if their guy just wanted billionaires, he had more than enough to chose from on the island of Manhattan. Maybe he wanted specific ones?

The problem for the team was that Peterson and Marshall were connected in dozens of ways of varying levels of importance. Did it matter that they both served on this charity board, or had given money to that PAC? It was like untangling octopi, trying to figure out which two tentacles were the important ones.

"What's 'The People for American Prosperity?'" she asked the room.

"PAC," Castle said, without looking up, "Conservative group. Lower taxes, cut benefits, blah blah blah."

"How do you know all these groups?" Ryan asked.

Castle shrugged. "I have money, so they think... I get a lot of calls."

Kate dropped the folder in front of her, concentrated on the Mu Shu. Everyone was working diligently and well, despite the lateness of the hour and the exhaustion. It felt like a team, maybe for the first time in months.

"Castle. What'r you working on?" she asked, noting how he seemed to be staring off into space. He was looking bedraggled and boyish, except for the five o'clock shadow. Was there a such thing as a three am shadow?

"These guys knew each other," he responded.

"Yeah," Espo said sarcastically, pointing at the stacks of papers around them, "think we established that Peterson and Marshall were connected."

"No," Castle said, "I mean, our killer and victims knew each other."

"You found something?"

"No, but I keep thinking about it, and it makes more sense than anything else. Our killer knew about Peterson and Marshall's habits and schedules."

"Yeah, but that just means he coulda been surveilling them," Espo said.

Castle shook his head, but it was Kate that continued. "No, I think he's right. Our killer was able to approach both of them in plain daylight. Either he was disguised or the victims knew him."

"Plus," Castle continued, "why these guys? I mean, if you're hunting billionaires, why these guys?"

"If you're hunting billionaires, why is any one billionaire better than another?" Ryan asked.

"If you're trying to get on TV, make a point, whatever, then wouldn't it be better to kill Warren Buffet or Mike Bloomberg or someone the public knows? These guys were about as anonymous as the super rich can get."

Ryan nodded.

"Okay, so we're looking for three connections then. Peterson to Marshall to some third person..."

"Five connections," Castle corrected. Earth and water remained.

They all sobered. They got his point immediately. No one spoke for a minute, just silently chewed their food while lost in thought. Eventually they each dove back into the stacks of paperwork.

"Huh. This is an interesting one," Esposito said around a bite of fried beef a few minutes later. He flipped the paper to the side a bit so that Ryan could read over his shoulder.

"Says here," Ryan said, reading Espo's paper, "that Peterson, Marshall and two other guys cofounded a business together, thirty years ago."

"That's four, anyway," Castle said.

"Would our guy be angry over something that happened thirty years ago?" Ryan asked.

"Nah," Espo said, "It's gotta be that charity thing."

"This guy is operating fast, but he's obviously been planning for a long time."

Beckett nodded, "This guy is smart, methodical. He has a long memory. I don't think there is a timeframe that is too long."

"The company is no longer in business," Ryan said, coming around to Beckett's way of thinking, "but they made decent money off of it. Not like they make now, but... it's reasonable to assume that this was the starting point for the fortunes Peterson and Marshall built up later."

"What did this company do?"

"Software. Not sure exactly. Maybe a tech can explain it."

"Let's find out. See if they were involved in any lawsuits, anything weird. A disgruntled employee, a competitor that got screwed. Our guy may have been wronged by them. Could be a simple case of revenge."

"Got it."

The boys jumped up, their spirits seemingly renewed by an actual lead to pursue.

"And guys?"

They stopped at the door.

"Find out who the other two guys are. If there's even a hint that this company is the motive, we need to get them under protective custody, fast."

The boys nodded, and left. But they were going at half-speed. She and Castle were too - everyone had been up for too long. The case had been going for about a day and change, but it already felt like a year.

She fished into her carton, looking for more to eat, but came up empty. Castle had ordered what he could, but they'd skipped so many meals everyone had eaten double. She dropped the container in frustration, catching Castle's attention.

"You need a break," Castle said as she stretched, trying to crack her back.

She didn't look over at him. She couldn't afford a break. Luckily, wherever Castle had disappeared to for the afternoon had seemed to rejuvenate him a bit. The rest of the team seemed to be riding on his energy. And he seemed to be paying attention to her again.

"You know what I really need?"

He raised one eyebrow and smiled, the closest to a come-on she'd seen from him in awhile. Rather than roll her eyes, she let the smallest smile peek out in return.

"I could really use the FBI's manual on serial killers. If this lead doesn't pan out, we're back to the killer with a message angle."

"I know a way we can get both."

She leaned forward at that. He had the FBI manuals? "Don't tell me..."

He nodded.

"After Tyson? Or Dunn?"

"Before both, actually," he said, "back when I thought a serial killer might make a good plot." He stopped, shook his head, like he was trying to brush off the ignorance of his youth. "I got them from my guy at the FBI. I have them - it's actually three manuals - back at the loft. I'll let you read them if you agree to a nap and more food first."

"Food yes," she said, "but the nap will have to wait."

He smiled. He'd obviously been bargaining with her, but she was okay with the terms. Besides, she was willing to give a little, to get a little bit of the old Castle back.

"Okay, let's go then."

* * *

 **A/N:** Sorry for the delays. My arm is in traction. It makes the typing a tad difficult, and the voice to text thing keeps thinking I'm saying 'asshole' instead of 'Castle.'


	10. Fourth Journal Entry

The fourth I will kill with Earth...

James Moriety will be home alone, reading the news in his study as he does every morning. His business parter will be on vacation, so he'll be busy thinking about the extra work he needs to take care of that day. He won't notice the digging done in courtyard garden behind the house, nor will he notice when I sneak into the study. If it's not money, he never notices it.

The kids - his twins - will be out. Off at college. For the last five years, since his wife died in a crash, he's seen his kids as nothing but a burden. Sometimes they rise to the level of employee, but never to family. It became easier on all involved that they moved out. He still gives them money, of course. He is, after all, a good dad.

He sits, always, in an Eames recliner, and I'll be able to get the garote around his neck and tied off to the headrest post rather easily. A knick with the scalpel and a threat will get him to calm down enough that I can bind him and start cutting. The pain will overwhelm him.

Then I'll release him, drag his body to the back, where his grave will have already been dug. His housekeeper comes later, after he's already left for the day, so I'll have some time to bury him and clean up.

Almost done, after that.


	11. So Empty, So Estranged

**Disclaimer:** Just borrowin' em in a not-for-profity kinda way

 **A/N:** Thanks to everyone for your response to this - I'd respond personally, but I'm limited in my typing right now, so trying to save it for this... Also, I accidentally posted the chapters in the wrong order, there is one before this that FF may have not notified everyone about...

* * *

There's a lot of things that can kill a man  
There's a lot of ways to die  
Yes, and some already dead that walk beside me  
There's a lot of things I don't understand  
Why so many people lie

Well, it's the hurt I hide that fuels the fires inside me

Will I always feel this way  
So empty, so estranged?  
-Empty, Ray LaMontagne

* * *

Back at the loft, Castle led Beckett into his office, deposited her at his desk. She enjoyed the way he did it so effortlessly, this letting her into his inner sanctum.

"Okay," he said, fishing something out of the bookshelves behind the desk, "This is book one. That's the only print one. The other two are addendum. I only have those electronically. They're on the computer." He handed her the thick black manual - more of a binder than a book, really, and pointed at his laptop with his other hand. "I'll be in the kitchen. No cheating and reading Nikki Heat while I cook."

She smiled but didn't respond.

She watched him leave, dropping his jacket on his couch as he passed by, and then occupying himself with the refrigerator. She smiled to herself, happy that Castle seemed at least halfway back to his old self. There was still something lingering - she remembered that he wanted to ask her a question before they found the second body - but they could address that later.

She cracked open the binder. The FBI was the world's leading expert on serial killings - unfortunately, while serial killings were rare, the U.S. did have more than its fair share of them. Kate started reading.

Killings at the pace they were seeing were almost unheard of, according to the FBI. In many cases, the FBI didn't even consider it a serial killing at all unless the events took place over more than a month's time. She was sure, though, that if their current case ran for an entire month, her team would have long since collapsed and the FBI called in. She disregarded that bit and read on.

Their guy was, according to the FBI's classification system, almost certainly of the 'mission-oriented' variety. He had a need to rid the world of a certain type of person, in this case, the exceptionally rich. That worried her, because while Peterson's death had been reported in the news, Marshall's hadn't, as yet. But once it was, the media would start connecting the dots, and a large number of politically connected and rather vocal people would be making demands of her team, the precinct as a whole, and probably everyone else up through the mayor and possibly the governor.

She hoped Gates would handle that side of things.

She paused for a second. There was a second category of killer that could also fit the profile. A large number of serial killers were connected to the medical profession - drawn in by the power over life and death. Peterson's method of death required a strong working knowledge of the human body.

A doctor or a pharmacist would also have the working knowledge of chemistry necessary to handle accelerants and retardent gels as well.

Most of the material around medical killers was listed as being in addendum one, so she closed the book and set it aside. Castle had said the addendum were on his computer, so she moved over and shook the mouse to wake the screen.

Hmmm... nothing happened.

She looked over. There were actually two mice on his desk. She bumped the second one and the laptop woke up. So what was the one she had in her hand?

She clicked one of the buttons, and this time she noticed that the TV along the wall had come to life. It looked like one of Jordan's smartboards.

Of course. He'd been like a kid around Jordan's tech, of course he'd go buy the same thing, as soon as he could. She was about to write it off as another Castle quirk and go back to the FBI files when she noticed her own picture on the board.

She stood up, moving slowing to get a closer look at the screen. She immediately got a sense of dread that she wouldn't like what she found.

She didn't.

Castle had her mother's case laid out on a murder board, just as she did in her own apartment. That angered her for a second, but she let it go. It was ridiculous to think that she had shared this information and then he would just forget it. That wasn't who he was, and she knew it. She couldn't blame him for acting like himself.

But then she noticed that he had information she didn't.

She stared at the screen for several minutes, hypnotized by the picture of a mystery man and the annotation 'keeping her safe.' What the hell did that mean?

"Okay, so I made steak and eggs. I figure the protein would... shit," Castle said, coming into the room and catching what she was doing.

"Castle, what the hell does 'keeping her safe' mean?" she asked, pointing at screen.

With a deep sigh, he put the food down on his desk. She watched him fidget, so she nailed him with her normal interrogation stare.

"After you were shot, I was contacted by someone who said he was a friend of Montgomery's. There is a file with information. Information damaging to whoever it is behind your mother's murder. Montgomery struck a deal with The Dragon years ago, to keep his family safe, and to keep you safe. This guy renewed it. If you stopped investigating, you'd be safe."

She couldn't look at him. She could see him, there in front of her, but he also wasn't there at all. Instead he was far away, like she was looking at him through binoculars, and she felt an odd sense of vertigo, as if she were about to throw herself from a great height.

"And that's why you asked me to stop, to protect this deal."

"To keep you safe, Kate," he said, moving towards her. She instinctively pulled back, suddenly afraid of his touch, afraid of herself and what she might do.

"They missed killing you by a quarter of an inch last time. They won't miss again."

She pushed past Castle into the living room, needing space and air. He followed her, but whatever he was going to say died on his lips when her phone rang. She looked at the number - it was Gates. She pushed her own anger down and answered the phone.

She listened to Gates on the other end of the line, as she watched him, frozen in the doorway, staring at her. When the phone call ended, he reached for her.

"Kate..."

"Don't," she said, stepping away. "That was the Captain. Robbery just called her about a B&E gone bad." She looked out the wide windows of his living room at the dawn breaking through the narrow canyons of the city. Second dawn in a row she'd seen.

"Okay..."

"When robbery got there, they found a girl trying to keep her father from bleeding out. He'd been bound and slashed. But the cuts... the ones on the chest were of a Chinese symbol."

"Our guy."

"Let's go." She wanted to yell and scream and tell him to disappear. Except that she needed him, even now. Even while hating him.

* * *

He tried to engage her in the car ride to the crime scene, but she brushed him off with an abrupt 'not now.' She knew they'd have to talk about it, Castle wouldn't let it go, now that it was in the open. But she had no idea what to say while she was busy deciding between running to hide at her father's cabin and just beating his forlorn face into a bloody pulp.

So much for the progress of therapy.

"You made a deal for my life, like I was a child," she bit out. She surprised herself; she'd spoken almost entirely without thought. She refused to look over at him.

"I didn't make the deal. Montgomery did. I was just making sure it held up."

She ignored that, brushed past it as she passed the cars in the early morning light.

"Keeping the deal or not wasn't your choice, Castle. You should've told me."

"If I'd told you, you'd go at it and there'd be no deal."

"You don't know..."

"Yes I do," he interrupted. "You can't stay away from this any more than I can stay in the car."

"Even so, you can't lie to me!"

He grunted, a completely strangled gasping. "Like you don't lie to me?"

He knew. Her stomach fell out from under her for a second as the guilt it her, but she pushed it away. It wasn't even close to comparable. So she ignored it.

"You have to stay in the car. But I'm a cop. I've been trained."

Another mirthless bark. "So have they. And there are more of them. Trained assassins and snipers, and your training isn't what has kept you safe. Montgomery's deal has. And if I have to lie to keep you safe, I will."

"No."

"If you're not willing to take your own safety seriously, then I have to. Montgomery saw that, and I do too."

That threw her for a second. Had she been living her whole life under this deal? She'd never really thought about it, even during her months of recuperation, how exactly Montgomery had been involved in the whole thing, but Castle obviously had. Montgomery was just another thing she'd put in her mental junk door, with all the other failed and broken things, never to be seen again.

She shuddered as she wondered if Montgomery had been playing her for so long - subtly leading her away from the truth, hiding things. No, she refused to believe that. Roy Montgomery had made a mistake, and then spent his life trying to make up for it by keeping her safe.

Of course, if she forgave Roy for trying to keep her safe, she had to forgive Castle too, for a far lesser transgression.

But she could have that file of incriminating information now, if Castle hadn't sat on it for a year. But was the file all that useful? If it would have saved his family, Roy would have used it. She knew he would have, even if it meant taking the fall for his role in Armen's death, all those years ago. He knew Montgomery, knew his family meant more to him that his own pride. So it was unlikely the file had enough to save her.

She could see how Castle was trapped. She felt trapped too. They had access to enough to keep them safe, but not enough to end it. But pursuing whatever else was out there would take away whatever halo of safety they had. Too much and not enough, all at once. Just like the wall.

Castle had been standing just a few feet from her, that day in the cemetery. If he'd moved a second earlier, he would've taken the bullet for her.

To protect him, she had to protect herself.

Was that why Castle had been so conflicted, lately? She had, more or less, given him an ultimatum. To be together, the case had to be solved. To try to solve the case was to be targeted for death. Life. Or love. But never both.

By the time they'd reached the brownstone on the Upper West Side, she was no closer to the answers she needed, save one; it was an impossible situation, but they were in it together. They both needed to start acting like it. She'd be able to find a way to deal with it all.

But it would take awhile.

She'd been quiet for several minutes, and Castle went to speak, to fill in the dead air. "No," she said, forestalling him. "Table it for now. We're here."


	12. And I'm Running Through These Walls

You may call it in this evening  
But you've only lost the night  
Preset all your pretty feelings  
May they comfort you tonight  
And I'm climbing over something  
And I'm running through these walls  
-Believe, Mumford and Sons

* * *

Cops were swarming everywhere as Beckett and Castle walked through the wide foyer at the front of the house. She'd gotten the call from dispatch ahead of Ryan and Espo, so they were the first homicide representation on the scene. The opulence of the wide hallways was undermined by the techs pouring in and out, dropping equipment and markers, and giving the whole place a new gritty and grimy feel. She saw a tall detective through the crowd at the back of the hall - Nivel - who she had once met through Demming. He caught sight of them and waved them over.

"What do we have?" she asked.

"Moriety residence," Nivel said, from his notes. "The daughter came by this morning - she's a junior at Columbia, keeps an apartment there - she wanted to visit her dad, found him being attacked in the study by what she thought was a burglar. She called 911 while trying to stop his bleeding, but he was gone before EMTs could get here. That's when dispatch called you."

"Where is he?"

"In here," Nivel said. "I'd be prepared. It's pretty gruesome."

"If it's our guy, don't worry, we've already seen it."

"God, I hope you've never seen something like this before," he said, leading them into the study.

Unlike the creepy pristine posing of the first two crime scenes, this one was a mess. The body was laying half out of a mid-century recliner. A rope was wrapped around the back of the chair, and some additional rope hung off the armrests, but his limbs had been cut free. The shirt was hastily ripped open, and through the copious blood splatter, Beckett could see the outline of a Chinese symbol, this one looking less finished than the others. There was no 1% symbol.

But this body had also been slashed, deeply and repeatedly. Arms, chest, face, neck - the cuts were haphazard, broad, deep, ragged, vicious and furious. The man looked partially flayed, like he'd been half-skinned. She could see bits of white, especially around the wrists and forehead, where the assailant had gone all the way to bone.

The murderer had hit several arteries, causing blood to shoot everywhere, covering the chair, the surrounding floor, the walls, everything.

If it hadn't been for the symbol, there'd be nothing to tie the two cases together, she thought, as blood continued to drip off the body, congealing on the floor.

Castle tapped her on the shoulder, showed her his phone. Neither of them could get close to the body without standing in some blood splatter. Techs covered every surface like bees hard at work building the hive.

"The symbol is Earth, except he didn't finish that little bit there."

She nodded. "So what the hell does slashing have to do with Earth?"

"Earth?" Nivel asked. "I don't know, but there's a big freshly dug hole in the garden."

"So he was going to bury him," Castle said. "The slashing wasn't planned."

Beckett nodded. "He did it when he got caught, so the girl would be forced to save her father, rather than go after him." Next to her, Castle shuddered, and she realized why. The girl had been there to see this done.

"Doesn't a place like this have a security system?" she asked, after a momentary bout of queasiness.

"Shut down."

"And the witness?"

"She's in the kitchen. The techs are with her," Nivel said, very quietly.

They went back through the main all and around the corner to find a small woman sitting on a barstool, being attended by a CSI tech who was swabbing around her face with a long handled Q-Tip. She looked tiny and young, surrounded by the techs and cops, the marble counters and the giant range. Kate wanted to hug her and keep her safe. She looked so little, but reminded Kate, so much, of Alexis.

The woman curled up on herself, nursing a glass of water. She wore jogging clothes and was covered, head to toe, in her father's blood, which the tech was trying to take samples of.

"Excuse me, I'm Detective Beckett," Kate said, approaching her. "Can I ask you a few questions, Ms..."

"Irene," the girl filled in. Her eyes were red rimmed, having just finished crying, but her voice was clear. "Irene Moriety. And can we do this later?"

"I'm sorry, Ms. Moriety, but we're under time constraints."

"I understand. But I'm covered in Dad's ..." she said, looking down at her clothes and spread her arms, "and my house is covered with cops. Can I at least change and do this somewhere else? Please?" Her voice broke on the question.

She sounded much younger than her age, and Beckett sympathized. She couldn't imagine having to answer questions right after her mother's murder, covered in her mother's blood. So she nodded, and looked at the tech.

"Do you have enough evidence?"

"We'll need the clothes. But otherwise, yeah, we're okay," the woman responded.

"Okay, clean up, change. We'll take you to the precinct. We can talk there."

Irene nodded, said thank you so quietly that it was more a moving of lips than anything. She slid off the barstool, and went up the stairs, the blood tech in tow.

Beckett shook her head, watching her leave, and turned back to Castle. They shared a look, and she hoped he knew their fight was on pause. He nodded, slightly, in seeming agreement.

"She's going to need a lot of help," Beckett said.

"She'll find that she's stronger than she thinks she is right now," he replied. They sat on that for a minute before he continued. "Our guy is stepping up his game."

"He screwed up, finally."

"Yeah, but he went from twenty-four hours between kills to twelve."

"Let's hope that doesn't mean we've got six hours until the next one."

Esposito and Ryan joined them finally as they waited for Irene.

"Beckett," Espo said, "is that James Moriety in there?"

Beckett nodded, and both boys swore. "What?" she asked.

"Remember that business we were chasing down? The four founders were William Peterson, Peter Marshall, Allen Jameson, and ... James Moriety."

"Shit. And do we know where Jameson is?"

"Calling now," Esposito said. "We'll get a detail on him, ASAP."

Esposito walked off to make the call. Ryan moved closer to Castle. "I saw in there. Did the girl..."

"She was right in the middle of it. Walked in on her Dad being attacked."

"Damn."

"Okay," Esposito said, "Officers are headed to Jameson's condo now." He went back to his phone to coordinate.

"At least we know our connection now. What was this company?"

"The four founders all went to Boston College together," Ryan said, "When they graduated, they started a place selling computer services to the Boston area universities. Sold out to Oracle a few years later. Collected about 20 mil a piece."

"And any reason why someone would be targeting them?"

Ryan shrugged. "There were some allegations that they stole Oracle tech, basically ended up selling Oracle's stuff right back to them. But nothing that ever stuck. Also, there was a fifth guy - their first hire. He didn't work out, latter tried to sue them. But the case was dismissed. That's all we could find so far."

"Thin, but maybe we track down the guy that brought he lawsuit," Beckett said. Ryan nodded and went to work.

She turned to Castle. "Okay, if this is simple revenge, why all the symbolism?"

"No clue, Beckett, no clue."


	13. Second Journal Entry

I will kill the second with water...

Assuming that things go well with Peterson, I will have to hurry to get to my second target. Luckily, Allen Jameson is the easiest one of them all. After him, I can take a break.

But Jameson will also be the hardest of them, the one who has already paid the most, and the one most likely to see what I am doing.

Jameson lives alone - has since the death of his wife and children five years ago. A car crash in the rain, which is why I chose water for him. Ironic or poetic, I suppose, if that's the way you think.

Jameson's house has one of the best security systems in the world, befitting a man that is both paranoid and who owns a security company, among many others. But Jameson has his own blind spot - his great uncle's cabin. He was supposed to take his wife and children to his cabin, the night they died. A last minute change of plans had him going up there the morning after, so that he wasn't in the car when the rest of his family went into the river.

He can join them now.

No, I won't do anything like run his car off the road into the river. That's been done.

He'll be spending time at the cabin. Because it's not in his name, and only close family and friends know about it, Jameson thinks the cabin is safe without the same elaborate security as his townhouse or his other apartments. His mistake. Once I dump Peterson, I'll be able to drive out of the city on the FDR, and if I hurry, I will beat him up there before his vacation begins.

He'll be surprised to see me, when he walks in and finds me sitting on his couch. But he won't be scared - he likes me after all. He won't even realize something is wrong after I pull the gun on him.

He'll start to get worried when I lead him back to his bathroom, shove the gun into the soft space below his chin. I'll force him to start the transfers. I don't know if he'll fight me.

I'll pistol whip him then, and he'll fall into the tub I'll have already filled. As a kindness, I'll carve him after he's drowned. He has suffered for five years already. If only he'd been in the car in the first place. Would've made all of this easier.

Once he's done, I'll unpack my hammock, hang it in the woods away from the house, and take a nice well deserved nap. I've always enjoyed a nap with the sun warming my face.


	14. My eyes are damp from the words you left

Well, I've lost it all, I'm just a silhouette  
A lifeless face that you'll soon forget  
My eyes are damp from the words you left  
Ringing in my head when you broke my chest  
Ringing in my head when you broke my chest  
And if you're in love, then you are the lucky one  
'Cause most of us are bitter over someone.  
-Youth, Daughter

* * *

They decided to conduct the interview in the waiting room of the precinct, as a courtesy. Irene was shaken, but decently composed, and looked older now that she was scrubbed, and wearing an oversized Columbia sweatshirt and jeans. But she was still tiny, such a tenuous thread upon which their case hung.

"So, why don't you walk us through what happened?"

"Um," Irene said, nervously rubbing her hands together. Castle wondered if she was still seeing the blood on her hands. "I couldn't sleep, so I went for a run this morning. I wasn't planning on going anywhere in particular. When I realized it was early enough to catch my Dad at home, I went over there. Dad's always in his study, reading the paper before work. So I went in there to see him, and there's this guy standing over him, dressed in black. I figured it was a burglar or something, and I yelled out. He turned and looked at me, and that's when I saw he had a scalpel in his hand."

"Did you see his face?"

"He had one of those ... um," she said, waving her hand in front of her face, "balaclava things on. Ski mask."

"Go on."

"I ... um... think I screamed. He turned back and just ...like ... goes at Dad with the scalpel." She acted out a slashing motion with her hand, back and forth, back and forth, a farmer scything the wheat. "I sorta froze, but then dad made a, um, gurgling sound, and I went towards them. The guys slashed out at me and I thought he was going to attack, but then he turned and ran back towards the kitchen and the courtyard. I was going to follow him, but the blood was just rushing out of Dad, and I thought... I mean, I tried to put pressure on his cuts, like they say, but he had a bad one on his wrist, and one on his neck. I called 911, but then Dad's blood just sort of stopped squirting, and he wasn't breathing. I think that's when he died."

Beckett reached out, took Irene's hand and squeezed it.

"I know you didn't see his face, but is there anything you could tell us about him?"

"Um, he was short, slender. He moved, I don't know, like a dancer I guess? Or an athlete? I don't know if that makes sense."

"Fluidly," Castle interjected.

"Yeah," Irene said, nodding. "And, um, the little bit of skin I could see around the eyes and wrist - he was, um, white."

"Irene, I'm sorry, I have to ask. Who besides you and your father had access to the house?"

"Um, Anna, Dad's housekeeper, and a nutritionist that leaves meals for Dad. And Clint, of course."

"Your brother," Beckett filled in, having read Moriety's dossier as they'd waited for Irene. "Does he live at the house?"

Irene laughed, humorlessly. "No, Clint has an apartment across the hall from me."

"He's also a student at Columbia?"

She nodded. "Dad got us each our own place. Things ... it's hard to explain."

"Take your time."

"My mother passed away a few years ago. My Dad's old business partner was taking his family up to a cabin in the Catskills, invited us up too. So, he and Dad had to stay in town when a deal went bad. Allen had a car service, but Dad insisted that Mom drive up with Allen's family. It was raining, and Mom wasn't familiar with the roads. They found the car the next day. They'd gone off the road, flipped on an embankment, landed upside down in a river."

Irene stopped, took several breaths. "Clint blamed Dad for Mom's death, forcing her to drive the Jamesons up there. Clint thinks Dad treats everyone like an employee. I mean, it was never horrible, but it was like we were all strangers in that house together. So many years of being strangers. You know, it's been five years this week? That's why I was out running this morning, why I needed to see Dad. It always hurts, a little more, on the anniversary."

Irene paused again, and Castle looked over at Beckett. She wouldn't look over at him, but she reached out, put her hand over Irene's for a moment. Irene smiled slightly before wiping her new tears away.

"Sorry. You were asking about us. After that, everything became tense. We couldn't figure out how to all fit together, with Mom not there. Dad and Clint are both very analytical, don't deal with emotions at all. Recently Dad decided it was too much, would be easier if we had our own places. So he got us two apartments over by the campus, not that Clint and I wouldn't have been fine together. Sorry, I'm really rambling today," she apologized, but both Castle and Beckett waved it off. "Do you think it's someone who had access to the house? Someone we knew?"

Beckett tilted her head. "The security system was disengaged. He knew that your father lived alone. He knew there was a back exit through the courtyard."

"I can't see why anyone would want to go after my family. I mean, I get we have money, but... wouldn't you rob someone if you wanted money? Why would you torture them?"

"We don't know, but we're trying to find that out, Irene," Beckett said. She leaned forward and softened her tone. Castle knew the routine, had seen Kate work to build a rapport many times. Kate would move them away from rough topics for a few minutes.

"You're a junior at Columbia?"

"Computer Science and Finance. Dad's insistence."

"Your Dad picked the majors for you guys?"

"Tried to," Irene answered, and Castle put together a mental picture of James Moriety as a true control freak. "It was easier for me. I like Comp Sci and finance. Dad wanted Clint to go pre-med and Chemistry. Clint is incredibly smart. Crazy genius smart. Dad figured Clint could cure cancer. But Clint dropped his majors a few months ago after three years to study Eastern Religions instead. Was a huge fight."

Beckett nodded, made a note.

"Are you familiar with Progesis Systems?"

"Dad's first company? Yeah, that's where he became friends will Allen, Bill and Pete."

"We think your father's murder was connected to Progesis."

"Why would someone murder anyone over an old database company? No... you didn't see this guy. He was slashing at my Dad like he wanted him to suffer, badly."

"If there was a connection, however..."

Irene shrugged. "I don't know. I really doubt it, but maybe?"

Beckett let her sit with her thoughts for a minute. Castle recognized the habit.

"Do you need any more from me?" Irene asked, finally. "I need to talk to Clint, tell him about ... about Dad. And I need to see if he'll come out to our place in the Hamptons for a few days. After this, I just ... they said I wasn't allowed to be in the house."

"Not until we're done examining it, no."

They all stood. "We'll call if we need anything, but a few days away would be a good idea. And if you need anything," Beckett said, pulling out a card, "even just to talk, you can call me."

Irene took the card, stared at it for a second. "Thank you, Detective Beckett."

They walked the girl to the elevator, and right before she got on, Irene spun and gave Beckett a quick, sad hug. She looked small and fragile when she got on the elevator.

"We gotta problem," Esposito said as he walked up behind Beckett and Castle. They turned to him.

"You can't find Jameson," Kate replied. Esposito just shook his head, no.

"Officers went to his townhouse, his office, even a little apartment he keeps near the office," Esposito continued. "No joy. His secretary said he's out of town on vacation, that he does it once a year. No one knows where he goes and he doesn't answer the phone."

"What'r the chances he's really just on vacation?"

"Air, Fire, Earth, Water. He's the fourth, Beckett," Castle said, reluctantly. But he knew she knew already, was already in motion.

"Okay, people, we're gonna need all hands on deck," she called out, and the three of them dispersed then, following some sort of cop protocol that Castle wasn't familiar with, so he just stood there, watching the activity spin up around him. This wasn't detection - it was hunting. Beckett disappeared into Gates office, and he knew the women were mobilizing the full might of the NYPD. They'd failed three men. They wouldn't fail a fourth.

With nothing to do but wait, Castle went back to Beckett's desk, started looking through the case files. He wasn't a hunter. But he could help narrow the hunt.

For a case lacking in both evidence and suspects, there wasn't a lack of questions. Why the symbols? Why the four essential elements? Why the 1% sign? Why these four men? Why now?

Why now?

Five years. Why was he thinking about that? He'd entered the long valley of sleeplessness where everything felt tamped down, and he no longer had full control of his brain. Like a hangover without the preceding fun.

Wait? Hadn't Irene said something about it being the fifth anniversary of her mother's death? Of Jameson's wife and children's death? No wonder Jameson would want to get away.

Castle flipped through the dense thicket of files until he found what he was looking for - the file Ryan had compiled on Jameson. Jameson's financial records listed dozens of pieces of property, but only three in the city - the office, townhouse, and apartment that Espo said had already been checked. Jameson had other places, apartments in Paris, London, San Fransisco, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. A ski cabin in Aspen, and a diving villa in the Caribbean. Dozens of investment properties around the world.

Of course, Jameson could also be holed up in a hotel room somewhere, but Castle dismissed that. A man grieving would want somewhere familiar.

But that still left a widely dispersed haystack.

Jameson's corporate holdings were worse. The man had his fingers in thousands of pies of varying size. Security, physical and virtual, seemed to be an area he played in a lot. It made sense. A man who'd lost much would feel a need to protect the rest.

Castle found the press clippings and official reports around Jameson's wife's death. Adele Jameson had been two years younger than Allen, mother to two teenagers, who, if they were still alive, would be about Irene and Clint's age. He looked at the pictures of an overturned Land Rover being winched out of the ironically named Neversink River. The river wasn't deep, but the car had obviously rolled before entering the water, and that left it deep enough to drown the occupants.

Something picked at the back of Castle's brain as he looked at the picture. He pulled up a map on Beckett's computer. Neversink was in the Catskills.

Jameson didn't have a place in the Catskills. But hadn't Irene mentioned a cabin?

Had he had a place before? Castle flipped frantically through the paperwork, his movements mirroring the bustling of the cops moving around him on the floor. It took a few minutes, but he found what he was looking for.

He had to find Beckett.

After running around for several minutes on the homicide floor, he gave up and texted her. A minute later, armed with the reply of her location, he found her on the robbery floor, allocating detectives and officers to various locations throughout the city. He recognized her spots - the offices and other holdings from Jameson's portfolio.

"I think I know where he is," Castle said, interrupting her.

"Castle," she said, her voice angry and abrasive.

"No, seriously. Look here. It's the anniversary of his wife and kid's death. They said he goes away every year. I think he goes back to where they were headed, that day."

One of her eyebrow's rose. "Good theory. But where the hell is that?"

"Their car was found here," he said, pointing at the Google map on his phone. "I looked through the records - Jameson inherited some land from his great uncle. It was located right here."

"Two miles away," she said, and he nodded.

"Okay," she said, moving away from him and adopting her cop command voice. "We have a possible location for Jameson. Someone get state patrol on the horn, tell them to get to this location." An officer came over, and she pointed him to Castle and the info on Castle's phone. The officer nodded and started talking into the radio on his epaulet.

"I think we need to get out there, Castle. Before it's too late."

He nodded, following her to the elevator. He was pretty certain it was already too late.

* * *

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own em. I don't even have money to buy many peanuts.

 **A/N:** I'm nearly done writing this, and it's not going to hit 50k words, unless I start making up random words to squeeze in. Maybe two chapters of Castle just squaff morking for 14,000 words...


	15. I will not open myself this way again

See the cage, it called. I said, come on in  
I will not open myself up this way again  
Nor lay my face to the soil, nor my teeth to the sand  
I will not lay like this for days now upon end  
You will not see me fall, nor see me struggle to stand  
To be acknowledged by some touch from his gnarled hands  
You see the cage it called. I said, come on in  
I will not open myself this way again.

-Song for Zula, Phosphorescent

* * *

Unfortunately, even with the lights going, it was more than a two hour drive to Jameson's cabin, so Beckett and Castle found themselves trapped in a confined space for far longer than either could stand.

Beckett, for once, broke first.

"I'm still pissed," she said after about thirty minutes on the road.

He humphed in response.

"And I don't want you involved in this," she said. She wondered if she should be a little more clear, but most of her attention was going to the New York roads. She was familiar with the drive, they were headed to an area near her father's cabin, after all, but she was not used to driving the area that much, and she has been awake for a day and a half.

Maybe they shouldn't be having this conversation, now.

"A little late for that, Kate," he said back, and it didn't matter if it was a bad idea, they were going to talk. It was too late to stop.

"I can't do this if you withhold things from me."

"And if you can't keep your head on straight, I'm going to have to."

She grunted, because it was an annoying ass thing to say, but she was also out of witty retorts.

"Seriously. Unless you learn to ... stay in the car, someone has to look out for you."

"And that's you?"

"I'm your partner, aren't I?"

"Yes," she said, biting the word off. She hated the truth, but she knew the lie was worse. He found his way around all of her lies anyway, eventually.

"Then act like it. You want me to share everything, fine. Here are my terms - I'll share, if and only if I get to tell you when you're going too far, and you'll listen."

"I listened to you that day, after I came back. But it was all a lie, wasn't it?"

"No," he said, "no part of it was a lie. Maybe it wasn't the whole truth, but it wasn't a lie. I want you to solve it, Kate. I want to help. But I can't watch you die again. So you have to let me have your back."

She didn't respond to that, and they both let the angry air just sit in the car as she drove the rest of the way up into the Catskills. The problem, she realized, was that behind her anger, she knew he was right, even if that made her even angrier. He wasn't saying anything different from what Montgomery had said, what Burke had said, what her father had said, hell, what she'd told herself when she'd put her mother's case away the first time. She had a tendency to forget herself in her mother's case, to stop clearing the corners. She had several large scars to remind her. And Castle had been the only thing, the only one, who'd been able to temper that, to let her look at the whole think without being overwhelmed by it.

But to agree to his rules meant crossing some sort of invisible barrier that she couldn't even begin to contemplate. Castle had already pushed through every layer of defense she had, but on this one, she had to agree to let him in. It was a concept so foreign to who she was, she has no idea how to agree, even if she suspected that she wanted to.

She wasn't sure if she wanted to. But she also wasn't sure she didn't.

So they drove in silence.

As they pulled off the road, onto the private drive of Jameson's residence, it all came crashing down on her, her exhaustion, her fight with Castle and their recent tension, the case, the sense of being too late. Too late for all of it.

State patrol covered the area around the cabin. But there was no sense of urgency in any of the troopers that were milling around, and she knew then that Jameson was dead. Four murders in two days. They should've been able to stop three of them. But they were always a step behind, until they were too late entirely.

Beckett was in a half-dream as she got out of the car, only half aware when the sherriff led them into the cabin and to the back bathroom. She felt like she was watching a movie montage of her own movements, rather than making them. She only came out of her fugue when she saw the body.

Another failure.

Jameson was pale and puffy, submerged in an old, rather than elegant, claw foot tub. Only the top part of his bald crown, his hands, and two knobby knees broke the surface of the water. He was dressed casually, in jeans, and his shirt, unlike the others, had been removed entirely. The symbol was there, carved into his chest, with the 1% symbol below it. The body was swollen, and the water was made pink from the blood

Beckett knew the signs well enough to know, without the tech telling her, that the body had been in the tub for hours. Maybe more. Maybe even a day. But she asked anyway.

"Time of death?"

The NY state tech turned to her, caught sight of the badge on her belt. "We're thinking early yesterday morning."

"Drowning?"

"Victim received a blow to the back of the head," the tech continued, "which knocked him unconscious. He was then drowned. Some signs of struggle, bruising of the outer forearms, upper shoulders, but it wouldn't be hard for someone to hold him under the water if he was groggy from the head wound."

"And the cuts on his chest?"

"Post-mortem."

Even in her haze, she noted the differences. Yesterday morning. He'd died about the time they were looking over Peterson's body. She wandered out of the cabin, found herself out in the woods. Figuratively and literally.

Take away the dozens of state cops and she could be at her Dad's cabin. She felt alone and lost, her chest and side aching with a phantom pain. The world receded away from her, her vision getting foggy and her ears ringing. She wondered if she was going to collapse.

She was ready to break. She felt herself as she had been a year earlier, out in nearly identical woods, pushing herself and pushing herself and not sure it was doing any good. Ready to collapse from mental and physical exhaustion. Ready, almost, to die, before something flared up deep in her, pushing her back away from the abyss she stared at, and bought her another day against the darkness.

The abyss was there again. And then there was a hand at her back. Castle. As she turned to look at him, she realized the flare was there too. That it was him.

"Let's get the hell out of here," he said, low and into her ear. For some odd reason, she felt better.

The chance for rescue was over. But there job as detectives wasn't. And they were together.

* * *

 **A/N:** All evidence is that people have largely stopped reading this. Alas. I continue to write it.


	16. Gonna have to guess what's on your mind

So open up my eyes  
Tell me I'm alive  
This is never gonna go our way  
If I'm gonna have to guess what's on your mind

Say something, say something,  
Something like you love me

Less you wanna move away  
From the noise of this place  
-Believe, Mumford and Sons

* * *

Even though it broke protocol, she let him drive.

Castle wasn't driving with the same energy that she put into getting them out to Jameson's cabin. There was no point. She'd left Jameson and the crime scene in the state's jurisdiction. It didn't matter - it would get folded back to her case easily enough, without any sort of fight on her part. Jurisdictional bullshit was the providence of TV shows, not real life. And she would've been too tired to fight about it anyway, had it become an issue.

She was feeling defeatist, which wasn't typical for her. But she couldn't seem to stop.

She was half-asleep in the passenger seat, all sense of urgency drained out of her. The hilly forest land of the Catskills flew by as she leaned her head against the window, green green brown, like the notes of some slow song she half remembered.

And then she's back in cemetery, lying in the grass. Castle is leaning over her.

She expects him to say I love you, but he doesn't.

"Kate, I'm sorry."

She can't speak. He lays her head in the grass, turns back to the sniper, pulling a gun from a holster she didn't know he wore.

The bullets strike him immediately. He lands in the grass next to her.

A man walks out from behind the tombstones. She tries to get up, to protect Castle, but she can't move.

The sniper stands over both of them, his face dark and featureless against the backlighting of the sun. He moves over to Castle. He kneels down, ripping Castle's shirt open. Castle doesn't move, and she tries to yell out but can't. The man pulls out a knife and begins carving into Castle's chest. And then her world went pink.

She woke, out of breath and sweating. She heard Castle's voice in the distance.

"Kate. Kate!"

"Castle."

"You were thrashing. Nightmare?"

She nodded. "Where are we?"

He stared at her, as if trying to decide whether to call her on her change of subject. Maybe before, he would have. Instead, he answered, "Headed towards the Tappan Zee."

She shook her head, whether to deny that she'd been asleep for an hour or to push away the last lingering bits of the nightmare, she didn't know.

"How long?" she asked instead.

"We're probably forty more minutes away. Care to talk about it?"

"About what?" she asks.

"The nightmare?"

"What've you been doing while I slept?"

He sighed, but didn't push. "Listening to the radio. It feels like we've been at this for weeks, like when you go on vacation and lose the rhythm of everything."

"Anything interesting?"

"Not really. Stock markets are way down," he said, shrugging, "but that's about it."

They sat in silence for a minute, but having trouble finding a way back into a conversation.

"I've been thinking about the symbols," Castle said, finally.

She sat up, shook off the last of her unplanned nap. "What about them?"

"Why Chinese?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, why use Chinese symbols?"

"Why use any of it? It's all just this elaborate stupid theatre made to make us think we're dealing with some Zodiac killer wannabe."

He shrugged. "Yeah, sure. All of it's junk, but he could've gotten the same thing done just by using regular words. Doesn't it feel like overkill?"

She looked at him.

"Yes, I hear myself. But, I don't know. That's the part that's sticking, for me."

"Fair enough, Castle. When we get back, we can look into it. Maybe there is some Chinese connection to Progesis. Maybe our guy is Chinese. Maybe he just likes being cryptic. I'm more worried about the fact that we're two and a half days in, four men are dead, and we don't have anything."

"We have one thing new thing. Our killer knew Jameson too."

She turns to him. "You're right. He'd have to - this was about the only time he'd be able to get to Jameson. But does that add anything? I mean, we've established that our killer knows our victims."

"But now we've confirmed it. You're not going to gather this just by surveillance. He'd have to have known Jameson for years. He'd have to know Jameson well enough to know this is the anniversary of his wife's death, know that he'd be at the cabin. Hell, knows of the cabin. Whoever it is, it has to be someone very close to all four of these guys, and for a long time."

"So maybe the theatrics were to hide motive."

"Right. He's hoping that we're so busy chasing Chinese symbols and everything, we don't notice the connection to Progesis or that the killer has to be connected."

"Is that a rest stop? Can we pull over?"

Rather than answer, Castle moved the car onto the off ramp, parked in one of the diagonal slots in front of a low squat cement building. They both got out, and as Castle stretched, she went to the bathroom, splashed some water on her face to wake up.

Then she made the inevitable call.

Gates was pissed, of course, when Kate delivered the news, but agreed to take over the logistics of shutting down the manhunt and informing the mayor. Kate ended the call with the strong feeling that she wasn't on the most solid of ground with the Captain. She shrugged. Nothing new. Kate ended the call and rested the phone on the steel sink, then splashed some lukewarm water on her face. She felt like a cliche, having a near breakdown in a bathroom, but she couldn't stop.

She couldn't do this alone. And she hadn't been doing it along for awhile. She just liked to believe she had. But all of the lies seemed to be burning off, bit by bit. Even the ones she told herself. But lies or truth, there wasn't time for self pity.

She stepped out of the small rest hut into the sunshine of the day. It really was beautiful, with the air still filled with petrichor from the previous night's rains, and the low grass fields receding into low mountains in the distance. They were close enough to see Manhattan as its own jagged mountain range. Castle had his back turned to her, staring off at the city, and she could see the whole of the last two days - maybe the last few months - in the set of his shoulders.

It was all too much. The lack of sleep, the fight ... fights ... her feeling of failure and the four dead bodies that she was carrying around now. She was too tired to fight herself anymore, to listen to the voices about why she kept herself apart from the one thing that could save her. Everything that had seemed critical and important now seemed stupid.

Including having revelations outside of a Quonset hut bathroom rest stop, but that didn't seem to be stopping her. For years she'd been holding herself back because she didn't think Castle was the kind who could dive in, and then, when he'd dove before her, all it had done is made her scared.

Every good reason she had to fight him had resulted in worse pain for both of them. So maybe it was time not to fight.

She walked up behind Castle, laid her cheek in the valley between his shoulder blades. He startled a little, and then let her lean against him. He was rigid, not fully trusting her, she could feel, but still supporting her. She didn't want him to support her if she couldn't do the same for him. But right there, right then, she seemed to realize it wasn't him that prevented that, but her.

"I'll stay in the car," she said.

"What?"

"Full partners. I'll watch your back and I need you to watch mine. So if you tell me to stay in the car, I'll stay in the car."

He pulled away, and she felt cold for a second, but then he turned and pulled her into a light embrace. She let him, tucking her arms up against his chest so that he was wrapped completely around her.

"What happened?" he asked.

"It seems like the only thing I can do right, lately, is rely on you," she said, her cheek to his chest, "and I..." she shrugged, unable to put it all into words. But he seemed to understand, as he rubbed her back and held her close. They stood that way, watching the cars pass, for a minute.

"I wish you'd told me, but I get why you didn't," she said finally.

"I just can't see you die again."

She leaned up to look him in the eyes. She could see it, all the things that scared her, reflected there.

"I can't see you die either, so you can't go after him on your own, either, ok?"

He nodded, letting her go. She rubbed his arm lightly, before letting go herself.

"Partners?" she asked him. For a moment he said nothing, some odd emotion playing across his face she couldn't read. Regret and loss and acceptance, all at once? But finally, after an interminable moment, he nodded.

"Partners," he said.

She felt lighter than she had in a long time.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you, everyone, with the great response after the last chapter. No worries - I have the full story plotted and roughly written, so it will all be posted as I find time to edit and clean everything up.


	17. He's been giving chase

I should not have hid  
Where my heart can't follow  
Cause this grace gets so far  
And too hard to swallow  
I've been running from Saul,

He's been giving chase  
When I look in his eyes  
All I see is my face  
-Passion Play, William Fitzsimmons

* * *

Castle felt trapped in his own relief.

On the one hand, his lie was both out in the open and resolved. He'd lied to keep her safe, but now he'd be allowed to without lying. Yet, he also felt incomplete. Deep in his delusions, he'd expected that his own lie would come with a trade - his deception for hers. And yet it hadn't happened.

Or maybe it didn't matter. He'd made a promise to her, one built from their friendship, sealed with his lie, and paid for with his love. He'd stay. He'd protect her, even with his life, because he knew no other way. Even if she used him. Even if he hated himself along the way.

No, he wasn't going to hate himself. Needing to be by her side was just part of who he was now, and hating that made no more sense than hating his need for air. And even if what they had between them wasn't fully what he'd hoped for, that was no fault of anyone but himself. He had to let it go, so he could recognize what he had - a true partnership - which, quite frankly, was often more rare than love.

His revelation was quieter than her own, and that's what she'd had, at that pit stop, he knew. But he had a revelation of his own, holding her under the hot sun at the edge of New Jersey. He would take what was given, and be happy for it.

It made him feel, if not fully happy, at least a great deal lighter.

For the last part of their drive, Beckett was behind the wheel. He understood - it wouldn't look good for him to pull the squad car into the precinct. It felt easier, finally, though they weren't at any kind of end point. Beckett seemed lighter too, sitting eight inches from him, her fingers tapping out an unknown beat on the steering wheel. He kept filling the air with words, feeling the giddiness of relief and a second (third? fourth? fifth?) wind.

At least some of the words vaguely resembled theory.

"...and so the Triad found out that Progesis had ripped them off, and went after..."

"The Triad," Beckett said, laughing. "Really?"

"Too much?"

"What about the Yakuza then?"

"Aren't the Yakuza Japanese?"

"Doesn't matter. They use the same alphabet, mostly. Oh!" he exclaimed. Beckett had given him another avenue.

"What?"

"Maybe they are Japanese symbols."

"I thought you said they were the same thing."

"Yeah, but when I looked up if Earth, Air, Fire, and Water meant anything special, I only checked Chinese philosophy."

"Look it up after we update the team. We're back."

* * *

Castle listened, or tried to, as Beckett laid out everything on the murder board, starting from scratch.

"Four victims, William Peterson, Allen Jameson, Peter Marshall, and James Moriety. All four were billionaires. Crimes started at approximately seven pm Thursday evening with Peterson, ended Sunday morning with Moriety. Only one witness, Irene Moriety, describes a short, white assailant when she interrupted him."

Castle let his mind drift, or rather, it drifted on its own. He was tired, and fried, and he couldn't keep a train of thought at all. He felt like his brain had drifted off to another continent.

Oh, right, Japan.

Castle pulled up Google on his phone, started searching for the primary elements and Japan. He let the bullpen recede away from him, dive into his own little world of research.

"We got the warrant back on the trust. A little late, but the recipient list is interesting," he heard Esposito say.

"Lemme guess - they all left their fortunes to each other."

"Got it in one. These guys were keeping in the family, as it were."

"Great motive," Beckett said, grabbing the folder from Esposito, "if it had been just one or two of these guys. With all four of them, we're back to the wacko with a cause angle."

Castle started jumping around in wikipedia. As a writer, he'd spent many an afternoon falling down the wikipedia rabbit hole. Hopefully this search would be more fruitful than some of his afternoon virtual wanderings.

"Progesis was a bust," Ryan said. "The lawsuit - they settled out of court, paid the guy millions. He moved back to India and used his fortune to be at the forefront of the outsourcing movement. His family said he passed away in 2010 from a heart attack. We're confirming, but it looks like that's a complete dead end."

Castle turned to Beckett as Ryan and Esposito started bickering. She gave him a thin smile as she turned her attention to the trust paperwork. He let himself go back to his wikipedia search.

"Detectives," Tory, the IT tech said, running up to the group, "You really need to see this..."

Buddhism. That struck a chord, though he couldn't say why. He looked out of the corner of his eye as Beckett looked back and forth between trust documents and the folder Tory had given her. He was more curious about Buddhism.

Japanese Buddhism, it seemed, recognized five classical elements.

Wait, five?

Chi, Kaze, Ka, Mizu... Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.

...and Kuu.

There was a fifth element according to Zen - the void. "That which was beyond our understanding," "the essence of non-essence," "the pure energy" - the translations were varied, but it was the concept of pure energy that struck Castle.

What was pure energy, if you were a serial killer? He'd killed with air, with earth... how did you kill with pure energy.

A bomb. A bomb was pure energy.

There weren't four victims, there were five.

"There's going to be another victim," he said aloud.

"I know who our killer is," Beckett said at the same time. They both stared at each other. "Wait, there's going to be another killing?" Beckett looked down at her paperwork. "Of course."

Castle smiled. With Kate's odd exclamation, he put it all together. He knew who the killer was too.

"We gotta get moving," Beckett said, standing up, and he stood as well. Morbid as it was, he always loved this bit, where he and Beckett were completely in sync.

"We should call the Chief out there," he continued, "I know him."

"How about I do that?" Beckett said as they rushed to the elevator.

"Hey guys? Could you clue us in?" Ryan yelled behind them, before giving up and following.


	18. I can bleed as well as anyone

Well all the blue light reflections that color my mind when I sleep  
And the lovesick rejections that accompany the company I keep  
All the razor perceptions that cut just a little too deep  
Hey, I can bleed as well as anyone but I need someone to help me sleep  
-Mrs. Potter's Lullaby, Counting Crows

* * *

She was alive again, tired and behind, sure, but alive and on the hunt. She was herself once more. Somewhere along the line, she had become something new and different, a version of herself that was only accessible through her partnership with Castle. And she had finally realized that the thing that terrified her, of being connected to someone so deeply that they'd take a portion of you if they left, had already happened. She'd been so afraid of it, had worked so hard to push it away, that she hadn't noticed it happening by increments until it was already done.

She had to tell him. He had to already know, didn't he? After all, he'd held her and professed his feelings already, both explicitly and in a hundred implicit ways. But she had to tell him, had to see the look on his face when she shared this beautiful thing she'd found.

She was in love with him. She was in love with who she'd become because of him. She was in love with what they were together. She was in love with what they could become now that she understood.

She had to tell him. As soon as this case was over, and they had a break, she'd tell him.

"I'm getting sick of being in this car," Castle said after she hung up with Chief Brady.

"What, Castle, don't like being alone with me?" she asked, trying to give him a sly look as she drove. But he didn't turn towards her, just continued to stare out at the Long Island scenery.

"How did you figure it out?" he asked instead.

"You didn't see?" she asked, trying not to let her voice break. Wherever she thought they were, it was obvious that she still had something to fix with Castle. Later. She nodded towards the file by his feet, "Look at the printouts at the top," she said.

He opened the file to find a series of webpages printed out. The url on the bottom of the page said the pages came from tumblr.

"I will kill the first with air," he read aloud. "William Peterson hated to ... Seriously? Is this really a confession?" He flipped through the posts. The final one started, "I will kill the fifth with the void," and laid out a plan to kill Irene Moriety with a bomb placed in her Hampton's bedroom.

Kate nodded. "Tory says it's anonymous, but it was posted a few hours before Peterson was killed, from an IP address of a coffeeshop on the upper west side. Wait, if you didn't see these ... how did you figure it out?"

"The symbols reminded me of Buddhism, but I couldn't think of why. But it was what Irene said about her brother."

"The Eastern Religions major."

"The former Pre-med, Chemistry major turned Eastern Religions major. I looked it up. In Buddhism there are five fundamental forces, not four. And then you knew, looking at the trust. Motive and skill set, all rolled into one."

"Clint Moriety has known all of them for years, had the background and knowledge..."

"...and about five billon reasons to do it. Or one big one."

"Ten if he gets to his sister before we do. Wait, what do you mean?"

"This could all be about the money," Castle said, continuing to flip through the printouts. "Or, it could be about his mom. Irene said Clint hated their father because of their mother's death. He's hiding his Dad's murder in the larger serial killings..."

Beckett nodded. Reading through the journals, there had been an air of revenge in some of them. For all that Clint tried to sound detached in his writings, he'd obviously hated Moriety and Peterson, and sympathized with Jameson. Of course, motive meant less than hard evidence and a girl's life, one of which they still needed to get, and one they still needed keep.

"Why in the hell would he write a confession?" Castle asked as she thought.

"He says, right there at the beginning. He wants to brag."

"No he doesn't."

"He wanted to play a game, then. It was posted before he started - see how he thinks the Moriety killing will go completely differently? He thought we'd find it much later, and be pissed off that the clues were all there."

"Hell of a game to play, then."

"Maybe not. An anonymous confession doesn't count for much on it's own."

Castle nodded, but didn't speak. They both knew there was one more life on the line.

"Chief Brady is setting up a cordon. The bomb squad is minutes behind us. We'll get there."

She didn't know if she was reassuring him, or herself. But she drove faster anyway.

* * *

She pulled up in front of the Moriety's Hamptons retreat and parked at a 90 degree angle, blocking traffic on the street. A few feet in front of them, a Hampton's PD car had done the same. A small, mousey man was standing there, watching the road as if he was a patrol cop. Only the stars on his collar give him away as the Chief.

They got out of the car, started walking to him. She could see the Moriety house behind him, a place large enough to be a country hotel, set way back from the road by a wide expanse of grass and privacy shrubs. The perimeter of officers that the Chief had set up was wide but weak, looking more appropriate for directing traffic after a concert let out than a bomb threat. None of the officers looked like they'd ever been asked to do anything more strenuous than a routine traffic stop before today.

"You Detective Beckett?" the Chief asked as she and Castle walked towards the lead car.

She nodded, showed her badge.

"Chief Brady," he continued, holding out his hand. She shook, but wanted to get past him quickly. They didn't have time for pleasantries. He nodded at Castle with familiarity.

"Has anyone approached the house?" she asked, forcing Brady back to business.

"Ah, no. I have men for a perimeter, but... it's the Hamptons. We don't have the expertise to deal with bomb threats."

"I meant, have any civilians come or gone?"

"Oh, no, ma'am."

Castle chuckled behind her, probably noting the same weirdness of having a chief defer to a detective. She looked back at him. Of all the ways she'd pictured going to the Hamptons with him...

A thought for another time, she reminded herself.

"I'll go," she said, "Get Irene out." The bomb squad was still five minutes behind them, but she didn't feel like she could wait. All they'd done, these past several days, was wait. Wait and fail.

She started towards the house, but only made it a few steps before Castle's arm was on hers, pulling her back. He blocked her path. He opened his mouth, but sound didn't seem to be coming out. And everything seemed to be moving slowly, like the air itself was pushing on them all.

Then everything went black.

* * *

 **A/N:** I'm sorry the back-half of this story has taken longer than expected. The combination of real life and extensive rewriting has been a bitch. Again, thank you to all of you for your patience and support.


	19. Never a Breath You Can Afford to Waste

These fragile bodies of touch and taste  
This vibrant skin - this hair like lace  
Spirits open to the thrust of grace  
Never a breath you can afford to waste  
When you're lovers in a dangerous time  
-Lovers in a Dangerous Time, Bruce Cockburn

* * *

She couldn't breathe, and a loud buzzing drowned out everything around her. She tried to move, but her legs didn't seem to want to move. The air was dusty, and the ringing was sharp and shocking enough to hurt and where was...?

What had...?

What?

There was a large plank of wood by her head and she stared at it, wondering how it got there, in the middle of the grass field. It smelled acrid, like it had recently been on fire. Everything around her was brown, even the air. Where was everybody? How had she ended up on her back? What the hell was that ringing?

She looked down, and found what was pinning her to the ground. Castle had collapsed on her, now unconscious or worse, dead weight on her legs.

She yelled to him. No sound came out.

"Castle!" she yelled again, still hearing nothing. She shook him, but he didn't react, and so she used her legs and arm to roll him off of her, onto his back. His arms had been partially wrapped around her, like he'd tried to bear hug her. She didn't remember when that had happened.

The ringing faded enough that she could hear screaming, yelling, sirens. Her only focus was on Castle, as she crawled over to look at him.

There was blood on his face, so much blood, and his eyes were open, but seemed to be staring off a thousand yards into the distance. He looked smaller, somehow, like one of his cardboard cutouts, except absent the cheeky grin, the dancing eyes.

"Castle! Rick!" she yelled, grabbing the lapels of his jacket. He didn't acknowledge her, and the blood continued to flow.

"Rick! Stay with me, Rick!" she yelled, but he didn't react. Despite the blood covering his beautiful face, she leaned down, kissing him hard. She didn't know why. She just needed him to react. She could feel his breath on her cheek, shallow and erratic, but nothing more.

She watched as his eyes closed, felt as someone pulled her aside. She stood up dumbly once she saw the EMTs take over, only then starting to process the scene around her. She noticed the house in front of her, half of it gone in an explosion, like a giant ice cream scoop had come through the front terrace and pulled it away. Smoke and paper filled the air, cops were yelling, and people were streaming out of the nearby houses to gawk. The sulfer in the air burned in her lungs.

Kate saw and heard and smelled all of these things. She paid attention to none of them.

Everything that felt like it had been in slow motion was accelerating, bit by bit, now moving too fast for her to take it all in. She understood everything then. All of it. Her father had talked, through his AA experiences, about a moment of clarity.

She was clear now.

But she'd trade all of it to make sure Castle was okay.

She watched the EMTs work, stuck in a daze, and then someone was talking to her. She looked over, recognized the Captain of the bomb squad. She couldn't remember having gotten to her feet.

"...my people are going in now. We think it was accidental."

"Accidental? It was a bomb."

"I meant that we think the bomber accidentally triggered it when he saw the police. It wasn't well placed, and the timing is suspect..."

She ignored him for a second, looking over at the ambulance where EMT's were working on Castle. He was awake, sitting up, and the sight of him alive felt like bright cold water after a long run. She gasped, and if she hadn't been standing in front of the large captain, she might have started crying.

"Any casualties?" she asked instead. She had to focus on the job, the failed job, for just a minute longer.

"One that we've found."

"We think there were two people in that house. A man and woman, both twenty."

He nodded, turned back to his people and making a hand gesture for them to huddle up. She watched him go, before turning back to Castle. She walked across the short expanse between them, hurting to see his beautiful face marred with blood.

"How is he?" she asked the EMT when she got to them.

"I'm right here," Castle said, miffed, as the EMT said, "Most of the blood was from this hit to the temple here."

He pointed to where a temporary bandage covered Castle's ear, temple and sideburn. "But it looks worse than it is. Head wounds bleed. He has some other cuts and scrapes - you should let us check you ma'am, you have the same - but they aren't bad. Mostly I'm worried he has a concussion."

"I'm fine," Castle said, uncharacteristically brushing off the attention. But she understood, finally, what had been making him pull away in increments, so now it didn't seem so strange to her.

"Did the explosion..." he trailed off. She wasn't entirely sure what he was asking. Maybe he was just asking to fill the dead air with something tangible they could focus on.

She shook her head. "Bomb Squad is in there. Says they've found one person dead. I'm hoping Clint was just stupid. But we'll find out."

"I'd like to take him in, get an MRI," the EMT interrupted.

"No," Castle said. "I'm fine."

He looked up at her for support, and she was torn between needing him to be safe and needing to be alone with him. Part of her wanted to take him to the hospital, run every test imaginable until it was certain he'd live fifty more years. Part of her wanted to drag him off to the nearest hotel.

When she didn't speak, he continued. "I don't need the hospital. I need a shower and sleep."

The EMT sighed. "You'll have to get stitches for that cut anyway, so you can bring it up with your doctor. Come on," he said.

"I'll drive him over, in a minute," Kate interrupted. "And we'll get him checked."

The EMT gave her a sour look, but nodded. He left them to go check on others.

She wanted to hug Castle, but he was staring back at the house, so she turned. Irene Moriety, covered in debris, was being led out the front door by a firefighter. They watched as she was led across the wide expanse of grass to them.

"Detective Beckett! Clint was home too. Is he ok? Have you guys found him?"

Kate took a deep breath as the EMT sat Irene on the bumper of the ambulance, started looking her over.

"We haven't yet, Irene. But we think..."

"What?"

"...we think it was your brother who set the bomb."

"What? Why?"

"We have reason to believe he was the one who killed your father, as well as several of your father's associates."

"So, " Irene said slowly, looking incredulous, "What? He was going to blow us up?"

"He was targeting you, Irene. You were the last thing between him and a billion dollar fortune."

Beckett watched as Irene's demeanor hardened around her, how she sat silently for several long seconds. "You still haven't told me if he's okay," she said, finally.

Beckett looked over the Captain. He took the hint.

"We found evidence of one casualty. Someone in the front bedroom, where we think the bomb was located. We won't know immediately. Was there anyone home besides the two of you, miss?"

"No," Irene said, leaning forward, the first tears starting to fall. "Clint was looking through some of Mom's old stuff, and I was taking a shower."

"You are lucky, miss. The tub and wetwall protected you from most of the blast. Otherwise..."

Beckett shuddered for a second, remembering her own close call with a bomb, years ago, and how she'd been saved in a similar manner. She moved a step closer to Irene, but stopped when the young woman stiffened and pulled into herself. Kate let her hand fall back to her side, knowing the signs too well. Another wall had been erected today, one that Kate suspected would be far higher and sturdier than her own. For Kate had only lost her mother. Irene had lost everyone.

The three of them stood there for a long time, each buried in loss, each unsure of how to move forward.

* * *

 **A/N:** Wow, for awhile readership had really dwindled, but somehow this became my second most reviewed story. Thank you, all of you, for your great support.


	20. Today you were far away

Today you were far away  
and I didn't ask you why  
What could I say  
I was far away  
You just walked away  
and I just watched you  
What could I say

How close am I to losing you  
-About Today, The National

* * *

They'd been at the hospital for three hours. She was having trouble staying awake, even with the spiking adrenaline in her system. How long did an MRI take?

The ER doctor had stitched Castle's temple rather easily, but had a much harder time convincing Castle to get an MRI until Kate had broken down and asked Castle to get it too, her voice on the ragged edge of begging. She'd left the crime scene to Chief Brady and Captain Morris, running off instead to get her partner medical attention. If either of them had cared about her lack of professionalism, she hadn't noticed. She had bigger things to focus on.

She took little comfort in the fact that Clint Moriety was dead and Irene was not. Both outcomes had been sheer dumb luck on her part. Clint had out navigated them at every turn, only to do himself in. That was the problem with crime, as far as she was concerned. To win, a criminal had to do everything right and be lucky besides. All she had to do was be right once, when it counted. She hadn't been right, exactly, but she'd gotten close enough.

So they'd won, sort of. But it still felt like a hollow victory. And one that had ended with her partner hurt.

Just as she was about to leave the small exam space that counted as a room and go hunt for answers, the curtain parted and Castle was led back in by a nurse. Castle sat down on the edge of the exam bed, but didn't lie down.

"How'r you feeling?" she asked as soon as the nurse left.

"Like someone hit me in the head with a 2x4," he joked. She smiled, which caused him to frown. "How's Irene?"

"Fine, physically. Chief Brady is taking care of the scene and Espo and Ryan took Irene. She's going to hurt for a long time though. She'll hide away from the world so nothing can hurt her again..."

She was cut off by the opening of the curtain again. Castle's doctor stepped between them, holding Castle's chart in his hand. She bit back the rest of her answer, not ready to get into the real topic she needed to address, not in front of the doctor, anyway.

"Okay, Mr. Castle, your scans look fine, but I'm pretty sure you have a minor concussion, so I'd prefer if you stay with us..." he said, and Kate immediately saw her partner shake his head.

"I'm familiar with concussion protocols," Kate interrupted. "I could watch him."

"Are you a nurse, or...?"

"NYPD. First aid is part of the training."

"Ok," the doctor said, reluctantly. "Don't let him sleep more than two hours at a time. Make sure he wakes easily enough, check pupils for dilation..." he tapered off as Kate nodded vigorously. "Okay, if you're willing to keep an eye on your boyfriend..."

"He's not my boyfriend," Kate said absently. Calling the love of her life a boyfriend sounded just silly and stupid. But she blanched when she saw the grimace on Castle's face. At least, finally, she knew the cause.

"Well... whatever," the doctor said, obviously exasperated. She knew the feeling, Castle wasn't the easiest patient, though she knew she was mostly to blame for this one. She'd been unpleasant with the hospital staff on his behalf, trying to ensure he'd get seen. "I'll leave him in your care. Feel better, Mr. Castle."

She watched the doctor leave, and then wrapped her arm around Castle's shoulder to help him up. He stiffened under her touch.

"Come on, Castle. Let's get you home."

"Actually, I was thinking. My house out here is close. I could stay there tonight, if you could drop me off."

She smiled. "Okay, we'll stay there tonight."

"You don't have to stay too."

"I do, actually. You need someone to keep an eye on that head of yours."

"I could have..."

She knew what he was doing, but she was tired of this game. It was time to fix things, once and for all.

"I want to," she interrupted. "So let's go. I want to see this great place you always rave about."

* * *

Okay, yeah, it's worth his bragging, she thought to herself as she pulled up into the long circular driveway. Even in the darkness, Kate could see how the house sprawled across the property.

"I'd give you the tour," he said, "but we're probably both too tired."

She came around to his side of the car, walked him into the house. "Just show me your room."

He didn't respond to that, simply walked up the wide stairs off the foyer. She followed beside him, until they stopped at a bedroom at the end of the hall.

"This is the best guest room, there's a bath..."

"Where's your room, Castle?" she interrupted.

"Um, back downstairs."

"I said take us there."

"Kate," he said, pleading.

"I have to get you up every two hours to check on you," she said. "I'm not going to traipse across this giant house every time to do it." She didn't mention that she couldn't bear the thought of not being around him.

Rather than move, Castle just sat on the bed, his head down, his arms between his knees.

"Kate, please don't do this to me."

She crouched down so that she could look him in the eye. He looked more like a lost little boy than anytime she could remember. "Castle. I need sleep. You need sleep. I need to be able to see you and make sure you're okay. Okay?"

He didn't nod or respond, but he didn't fight her when she pulled him to his feet. He led her back down the stairs and to the most opulent bedroom she'd ever seen. Her mind quickly started to spin fantasies about spending entire days or weekends curled up in this room, in this bed, with this man. But not tonight. Tonight was about making sure he got enough rest to have a real conversation tomorrow.

There was a bit of fumbling as he got her some clothes to sleep in, and he directed her to the bathroom to shower. She cleaned up quickly, half-certain that Castle was going to run off and hide in the guest bathroom while she was in the shower. It was finally clear to her what had happened between them.

She'd always thought that pretending not to know about his declaration of love was somehow kind, at least, the kindest thing she could do then. She didn't want to have to acknowledge it and then immediately tell Castle she wasn't ready - something about that seemed unfair. It had always seemed better to her just to wait until they were both at a place where they could dive in together.

But she'd seen the truth of it all, laying there in the grass after the bomb. In that moment, all she'd needed was for Castle to know what he meant to her. She needed nothing from him other than for him to be alive. She had loved without the need to be loved in return, had loved purely and without reservation. And she knew in that moment that Castle had felt the same, when it had been her laying in a sea of grass. And she'd taken that from him.

She was pretty sure he knew she remembered. She didn't know when he'd realized - maybe he'd always known. He had always been able to read her in ways no one else could, able to see through the lies she tried to tell even herself. And so he knew that she had stolen something from him.

They had both been lying for so long. He had lied to protect her. To him, it must have looked like she had lied to protect herself. It felt ironic, now, seeing how her attempt to protect his heart had ended up looking so much like betrayal.

She knew how it felt - to love someone and yet hate them a little bit too. She had loved Castle for a long time, and she'd hated him when he'd come back to her after that long summer with Gina. She'd hated how good it felt to be around him, and how the memory of his loss would sneak up at her at the strangest times. She remembered feeling like two people - the one that loved Castle, and the one that had felt betrayed by him.

She was sure that was what was happening here - how he could run so hot and cold with her, how he could be her partner one second, bound together so well she wasn't sure where one of them started and the other ended, and then so distant the next, like a coworker forced upon you.

She'd never wanted to hurt him. She'd just wanted them to live in a reality where his first 'I love you' could be easily answered with an 'I love you' of her own, not her dying in ambulance. They deserved a better story than the one they'd gotten, and she'd been determined to follow his lead and write a better story for them. But he was the writer, and she was the realist, and so she'd failed, her attempts getting all muddled through editing.

No more. He'd been brave enough to be honest with her. She would do the same. She was ready to explain everything to him, and let their life start. She opened the door to the bedroom, hoping he was there, and that they could talk.

She found him asleep instead. She took comfort in the fact that he hadn't run away, at least. She pulled the covers over him the best she could, set the alarm on her phone, and curled in next to him. She was asleep in seconds.

* * *

Two hours later, she woke him up. She remembered waking up next to him once before, during the animal smuggling case, how he'd woken happy and fully comfortable being next to her.

It was not how he woke up this time.

"Kate, what'r you doing here?"

"I need to check on you."

"I'm sorry."

"What for?" she asked, checking his eyes. Everything was clear, even if he wasn't.

"I'm sorry I'm in love with you. I'm trying to stop," he said, his voice sounding like that of a little boy, sad that he'd disappointed his favorite teacher.

"No, Castle. Don't, don't ever, okay?"

"I'm sorry..." he said, and then he was asleep again.

A few minutes later, she was pulled under once again too.

* * *

He didn't say anything the second time she woke him, and the third he talked mostly about lobsters. By the fourth, she was getting used to his odd little way of returning to the world.

"I wish you weren't here," he said when she woke him the fifth time.

"Why?"

"I want to do this job. I get to do something important. But it's too hard to be around you."

"I'll make it better."

"Kate, please just ... leave me to get over you."

"Sssh," she said, kissing his forehead, "I'm never leaving you again."

He fell back asleep shortly after that, a grimace on his face and her hand gently rubbing his temple until he started to snore softly. She turned over, sliding backwards to tuck into him, the little to his big spoon. He unconsciously wrapped his arm around her, pulling her tighter.

This time, she didn't fall back asleep.

She started to cry then, quietly but deeply. She cried for all the time she'd lost, for hurting him. She cried for failing - failing all the victims of Moriety, failing on her mother's case, for dwelling in obsession as surely as her father dwelt in addiction. She cried for her father, and for the time he'd lost, and for their never fully repaired relationship.

She cried for Roy, whom she'd never let herself mourn. She cried for Irene, who'd lost everything and would lose part of herself in the process. She cried for herself, for the version of herself she'd lost at nineteen, and for the second version of herself she'd lost at thirty-two. She cried for Castle, who was broken, and for herself for breaking him. She cried until she was empty, and then until something else started to fill her back up.

She started to let go. And then she let go completely.

After about an hour, she was done, her crying having cleaned out parts of her she learned to forget were there. As she watched the sun rise over the water, she felt healthy for the first time in forever. She'd remembered, from her freshman seminars at Stanford, about the Greek idea of the golden mean, about having to embrace tragedy to achieve balance. Katharos. Catharsis. Becoming clean.

Now she understood.

The last few days had nearly pulled her apart, but had left a gift behind. She understood now - where rationalizations were really just fear, how failure was survivable, how sometimes, the only way out was through.

She'd fix it all, finally. She'd make a better version of her, and a better version of them. With that thought, she curled into him and slept.

* * *

 **A/N:** Trying to publish some slightly longer chapters as things slow down a bit...


	21. Where its always safe and warm

Not a word was spoke between us, there was little risk involved  
Everything up to that point had been left unresolved  
Try imagining a place where it's always safe and warm  
Come in, she said  
I'll give ya shelter from the storm  
-Shelter from the Storm, Bob Dylan

* * *

Castle woke slowly, with the dullest of headaches, yet warm and rested. He felt like he'd slept the sleep of the dead, though small afterimages, half-way between dreams and memories, played at the edges of his brain.

He looked down to find Kate half-sprawled over him, her head lying across his chest with her arm and leg wrapped possessively around him. Normally this would be a moment that started or ended hundreds of his fantasies over the years, but now it just hurt. Fantasies had stopped being a harmless indulgence around the time he'd realized he was in love with her, and thinking about them at all had become too much like self-flaggellation around the time he'd realized she would never reciprocate his feelings.

And yet he lingered, breathing in the scent of her.

After taking a minute to let his masochistic tendencies play out, he hugged her close, and then rolled her gently onto her back, so that he could slide out of the bed without waking her. Once off of him, he took a moment to look at her. She was peaceful, breathing deeply and slowly, her eyelids fluttering as she played out some dream. He noticed then that her eyes were red and puffy from crying. She had wept in her sleep. Was that something she did regularly?

He wanted to brush his fingers through her hair, a calming gesture he'd used with Alexis many times. Kate, as elegant and composed as she was, was not a graceful crier. She looked puffy and blotchy and more human than Castle had seen her in awhile. He wanted to hold her and make her better. He got out of bed instead.

Or tried to. Propped on one arm, ready to push himself up, she'd reached out, grabbed the front of his t-shirt in her strong grip.

"Stay."

She'd said it quietly, a half-command and half-plea, and he'd thought at first that she was still dreaming, but he looked at her and she was looking at him with clear and alert eyes. Whatever had caused her to cry in her sleep was gone.

His voice caught.

"How'r you feeling?" she asked, sliding up into a seated position, loosening her grip on his shirt, but not letting go completely. He was angled over her, and if he just let her pull him forward slightly, he could dip forward and kiss her good morning. Or he could fall forward entirely and take her in his arms, crushed underneath him. But he stood there, frozen, his arm starting to stiffen under his weight.

"A headache, nothing bad. Did you wake me?"

"Every two hours. You don't remember?"

He shook his head. "I don't, a lot of the time. Alexis would take advantage, when she was young. Try to ask me for a puppy or somesuch..."

She looked up at him, a delicate smile on her face, and it was so open and beatific and filled with something that looked like longing that he had to pull away or be lost forever.

"I need to use the bathroom."

She let him go, her hand dropping slowly to her side, but her eyes never leaving his. He stood up and retreated quickly to the en suite bathroom. There he peed and brushed and splashed water on his face, stalling more than anything. He stared at the door back to the bedroom, as well as the door out to the porch and the swimming pool. He could go outside, but then what? The rest of the house was locked, and his keys were in his jeans in the bedroom. Go run down the beach, hop a fishing trawler, start a new life? All to avoid an awkward conversation with Beckett? Why? He had two of those a day, lately.

He heard a soft knock at the door, and when he didn't answer, Kate ducked her head inside.

"Can I come in? I wanted to brush my teeth. Do you have..."

He jumped at the chance to have something to do, and grabbed a half-open plastic package from under the sink that held half a dozen new brushes. He held it out to her sheepishly, like a shield, and without taking it from him, she delicately extracted one from the container and walked over to the sink, again giving him a shy but angelic smile.

He watched her brush for a moment, and then turned to leave, but once again she reached out and grabbed him, freezing him in place.

"Don't go," she said, "please? We have a lot to talk about."

"Like?" he asked, angrier than he intended.

She let him go, and looked down at the sink, her brushing turning absent and distracted. He waited for several seconds, but when no answer came, he turned back towards the bedroom door.

She spit hastily and pinned him in place with a look in the mirror.

"Castle," she said, and something in her voice made him pause as she turned to face him. She put down the toothbrush, and faced him too.

"I love you," she said, simply, quietly. "I'm in love with you.'

It was another fantasy he'd had, but the details were wrong. A lazy morning in the Hamptons, a declaration of love. But there was too much gravity in the moment, too much ache. It should have been joyful. Instead it felt desperate.

"We have a lot to talk about, and we're not ... I'M not good at talking ... so I figured I should get the important part out first," she said, her face taking on an affected lop-sided grin.

"Then why did you lie?" he asked, before he was aware of what he wanted to say.

She walked past him, and he thought for a second that she was retreating, once again, but she grabbed his hand as she passed, and she tugged him along as she left the bathroom. He let her lead him back to the bed. She tried to crawl in beside him, but he angled her around so that she was facing him. She nodded and sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed, so that they could look each other in the eye.

"I was afraid," she said, once they were sitting.

"Not good enough, Kate."

She took a deep breath and nodded. "You know, I wanted you to say it before."

He tilted his head, confused by what she meant.

"The first time you invited me up here... I had daydreams of you and me, I don't know, walking along the beach and telling me. Or when you came back, maybe finally... but you were still with Gina and I'd started dating Josh, but I thought..."

She seemed to realize she was rambling, so she stopped, her hand waving away whatever thought she was having.

"I've wanted us to be something more for a long time, Rick. Maybe longer than I want to admit because it means I'm a coward or something... but then I'm dying and you tell me you love me and it was too much. It was way too much..."

"I didn't say it to burden you, Kate," he said quickly, anger rising in him, but she grabbed his hand and squeezed it quickly.

"I know. That's not what I meant. I know what I'm like. All I want to do when I'm hurt is crawl in a hole and be alone. Even if I had it all to do over again, I'm pretty sure I would still run away for weeks and hide. But maybe I would've been smart enough to tell you I love you too, to do a better job of asking you to wait."

He was angry, but he took several deep breaths, calming himself down. She watched him, giving him a moment.

"I get that, Kate. I really do... but that was nine months ago. I have trouble believing you really feel the way you say you do if you can sit on it for nine months..."

"I know. I probably should've told you on the swings that first time I saw you. I wanted to, I just ... couldn't. Or maybe after the bank..."

"Or the river... please, Kate. I need to know why."

"I think ... I think it's because you became my reward."

"I don't know what that means."

Kate looked down, playing with some invisible lint on the comforter. "I would make little deals with myself, up there in Dad's cabin. If I do this, then I can have that. If I can walk all the way to the lake, I'll call Castle. And then I'd get there and make another deal with myself. If I can walk to the lake for five straight days..."

She got up off the bed, started pacing. "When I got back, I kept doing it. You were a carrot and a stick all in one. If I worked through things with my therapist..."

"Your therapist?" he interrupted.

She nodded. "I've been seeing someone. Dr. Burke. Trying to get better. If I worked through an issue, I'd let myself start something with you. But starting something also meant admitting to this lie that kept getting bigger and bigger the longer I left it out there..."

Her phone rang. Both of them stopped to stare as it vibrated its way across the nightstand. She didn't move, and so he reached over and grabbed it.

"It's Gates," he said, handing her the phone. She took it, and with one short nod, she answered.

He watched her as she paced around, giving her boss a series of one and two word responses. Her body language was tense, and Castle realized for the first time that, despite the difficult conversation, she hadn't been the least bit tense or standoffish with him. It felt odd, after so many years of having to hunt and fight for the tiniest bits of information from her.

He wanted to believe her. More importantly, he did believe her, at least with his head, if not his heart. He knew she was telling the truth. He just wondered if it would change anything.

For the first time, he had to recognize that merely loving each other may not be enough. He had two failed marriages to attest to that.

She hung up, and threw the phone half-heartedly onto the bed.

"What did Gates have to say?"

"What?" she asked, then shook her head. "Oh. It doesn't matter."

"Kate..."

She shrugged. "We've been suspended. Anyway, I'd meet with Dr. Burke..."

"Suspended?" he asked, interrupting.

She sat down next to him. "Irene Moriety filed a wrongful death suit in Manhattan Superior Court this morning. Claims that our rushing in on the scene caused Clint's death. Standard procedure is to suspend the lead detective with pay pending a hearing."

"And you're okay with that?"

"No, but I understand. She's lashing out. And while I don't think we did anything wrong, Clint Moriety is dead."

They sat, side by side, both lost in their own thoughts.

"Do I still have a chance?"

He looked over at her. "Of course, Kate. They'll see you did everything by the book..."

"I meant with you," she said. "I'm not really worried about the case right now."

She leaned her head against his shoulder, and despite himself, he rested his head on hers. He couldn't say yes, not yet. But he refused to say no.

"Come on," he said instead. "Let me make you some breakfast."

He took her hand and pulled her to her feet.

"Whatever you decide, Castle, I want you to know - I love you. I have for awhile. And I can't do this without you. I don't want to. So even if you decide we can't be more than we are, we'll always be partners, okay?"

He nodded.

"And I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't want to, but I was selfish and I did, and I'm sorry."

And with that, he knew, eventually, he'd say yes.

* * *

 **A/N:** Still a ways to go. I'm no longer entirely sure it will end how I planned. They've zigged a little.


	22. I will fight better

This is war, this is war  
I will run until I can't run anymore  
Someone's got to lose  
It's not gonna be this girl this time

I won't surrender  
I will fight better  
You lock me out you knock me down  
But I will find my way around  
I won't surrender  
I will fight better  
And this is war  
This is war  
-This is War, Ingrid Michaelson

* * *

Despite the fact that he offered, she was the one that ended up making breakfast.

She made him pancakes.

She never had understood the symbolism, but she could take a decent guess, and given the last few hours, it seemed appropriate. Plus, they didn't have much in the way of supplies. Castle's guy had shown up the night before when Castle had made a call from the hospital, but that had only been enough to get some bacon, coffee, eggs, milk. Still, it was enough for now.

"So, can you finally tell me what it is with you boys and pancakes?"

"Oh," he said, biting into a piece of bacon. "Espo calls them an edible thank you. You know ... for sex."

She laughed, not so much at the joke but the faked nonchalance he tried to affect. If it was a thank you, she was fine with that. Even if they never got to sex. Both of them were giddy, her especially, fueled by the relief that came from finally completing something difficult, as well as by seeing real Castle smiles for the first time in months.

She let him chew on his bacon as he fished around on his phone, catching up with the world. She was happy enough to tend to the skillet while watching him out of the corner of her eye. For the first time in as long as she could remember, maybe even as far back as her mother's death, she didn't feel an incredible pressure to move forward. For the first time in forever, she felt at peace.

She looked at the tall man sitting at the wide marble bar, his hair askew and his attention split between his phone and his bacon. She'd long thought of Castle as a risky bet. Two ex-wives, and a life splashed across the tabloids, he'd worried her as much as thrilled her, right from the first. She couldn't see herself as anything other than a way-station between wives, or even worse, wife number three for a man that would eventually top out at a half-dozen. She'd carried that assessment for far longer than it deserved. Through meeting his exes, his daughter, his mother... through watching him work, both at the precinct and in front of the laptop, she'd come to realize Castle worked very hard to look like he wasn't working at all. The nonchalance and charm were an act, as was the playboy persona.

The truth was, when Castle got ahold of something he cared about, he'd work very hard to take care of it.

That was almost scarier.

Only recently had she come to realize that she was the one, between the two of them, that might be the bad bet. Stubborn and closed off, demanding and direct, no one had ever been able to handle being around her for long. Until him. He'd pushed back by not pushing back at all, but by bending her, slowly, through some sort of emotional judo, into someone new. And the old her would have hated that, except the old her was gone, or dying anyway, being replaced by this new version of herself that had been built by her hard work and his.

So even if he ultimately decided not to give her a chance, she was still happy, because she was finally on track to being the person she wanted to be.

But she still wanted him. Wanted them.

"What's so captivating on that phone, Castle?" she asked as she served him the last pancake. Both of them had huge stacks on their plates. She'd gone overboard.

"Hmm?" he responded, then looked up. "Oh. An email from my accountant. Market's been nuts for a few days. I took a hit."

"Bad?" she asked. Her mother had come from money, and Kate herself had a decent trust that she drew from occasionally. Technically, she was old enough now to break the trust, just collect the money straight out, but she never had. She had more than enough, and far more than most, and that was fine with her. Large amounts of money seemed to own people, and she just wasn't inclined enough to care.

But she was sure hers was a small drop in the bucket compared to his wealth. She wasn't sure what they place they were in cost, but she was sure it was more than she'd see in her lifetime. She was amazed, again, at how gracefully he handled it all, the occasional childish excess aside.

"No," he said, after thinking about it. "Not really. Apparently things are coming back a bit today."

"You still seem distracted."

"I don't know. There's something ... I can't put my finger on. I think it's just that feeling you get when you've been on vacation a few days, and it feels like the whole world moved on while you were out?"

"Quite the vacation," she said, but she smiled, hoping to make it sound like a joke. She understood the feeling; had felt something similar after other cases. More so before Castle. Since partnering with him, she had less tendency to disappear into a case. Another thing to thank him for. "So what do you want to do today, besides catch up?"

"What about the case?"

She sighed. It felt odd for Castle, not her, to be the one focusing them back on business. She just wanted to curl on his couch with him, maybe try the pool he'd used as a lure the last time. But she answered him anyway.

"Neither of us is allowed to touch it. Well, technically, I'm not allowed, but I doubt Gates will let you do anything..."

He nodded in agreement.

"... and the boys have been pulled onto some other case already. Gangbanger, or something. The Chief of Detectives will pull in someone from another precinct to review our notes and findings. We'll be deposed at some point. But nothing's going to happen for a few days; we have time."

"Why?"

"Crime scene processing is still going on. You and I both know that what we had on Moriety was really thin. Gates will slow roll everything as much as possible to make sure we get a chance for some hard evidence to back us up. Why all the questions?"

He shrugged. "I'm not sure. Like I said, something ... there's something... off... about all this. And frankly, I'm surprised you aren't more angry or worried."

It was her turn to shrug as she stabbed at her stack of pancakes. "I would've preferred Moriety go to trial, but I can't really see where we made a mistake." She looked up at him, "Besides, my mind is sort of ... elsewhere... today."

He smiled for a second, but then it fell away. "I have to ask. Why now?"

"Why now what?"

He stared at her for a moment.

"Why us?" she asked. "Why did I tell you these things now?"

He nodded. "Was it the bombing?"

"Yes. No. Or the bombing..." she shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. It was getting easier to be forthcoming with him, but it still wasn't easy, exactly. Maybe it wasn't easier at all; maybe it was just that the work it took finally felt valuable enough to do it.

"It's the case, sort of. We did everything right and Moriety is still dead. Irene is still alone. Peterson and Jameson... if you can do everything right and still screw up, then maybe waiting for perfect is stupid. And part of it was the bombing - when I saw you there, blood all over your face - I just wanted you to know that I loved you."

"You told me you loved me? I wish I'd been conscious for that."

"I'll tell you whenever you want, if it will help," she said, a small part of her wanting to beg him to say it back.

He smiled, but didn't respond, so she continued. "And maybe it was that you'd been protecting me. I don't really know why it was today and not a year ago. I'm just glad it's today and not a year from now."

"Me too."

He smiled, and with a nod, they both ate.

* * *

 **A/N:** Something tells me I'm not hitting 50,000 words with this one. I wanted it to be urgent, so not a lot of room for discursion.


	23. The Devil may do as the devil may care

see the devil may do as the devil may care  
he loves none sweeter as sweeter the dare  
her mouth the mischief he doth seek  
her heart the captive of which he speaks  
so note all ye lovers in love with the sound  
your world be shattered with nary a note  
of one cupids arrow under your coat  
-Cupid de Locke, Smashing Pumpkins

* * *

Kate convinced Castle to give her a tour of the place, rather than head back immediately. She was very happy when it really hadn't taken much convincing. He'd led her around from room to room, the normal Castle glint back in his eye. She didn't end up paying attention to anything but him.

They'd ended up in a pair of Adirondack chairs in the sea of grass between his place and the beach, looking out over the water. The Atlantic was calm, with no white on the waves, and she could see a few ships near the gray of the horizon.

"I do need to be back today. Alexis' graduation is tomorrow."

"And how is the father of the graduate taking that?"

"Well, I already have a plan to drown my sorrows. After the ceremony, Mother is headed out here, Alexis is on her all nighter, and I'll busy myself with a double feature of 'The Killer' and 'Hard-Boiled.'"

"John Woo, excellent," she said. She paused for a minute, trying to figure out how to get herself invited to his movie night.

"You wouldn't want to join me, would you?"

"I'd love to."

"Great ... then ... it's a date."

She smiled, and looked down to keep from smiling more. Instead she reached across the space between their chairs and took ahold of a few of his fingers. He responded by squeezing, gently.

It was almost too much for her, too bright, too alive, too full of hope. She wanted to temper it a bit, hold it all at bay so she could examine it a bit before it overwhelmed her. She wasn't much used to happiness, and sometimes it felt painful, like flexing a hand that had fallen asleep.

As usual, Castle seemed to sense what she was feeling, because he cut the tension with a joke. "At least it's a cheap date, what with the hit the market..."

But when he didn't finish, she looked up. He'd drifted off, mid-sentence, to stare at the water, the small waves beating an uneven rhythm on the shore. She wondered if it was an after effect of the concussion, but no, he was just lost in thought.

"Castle?"

"The market."

"Castle?"

"Kate," he said, turning to her. "Why did Moriety leave the bodies out in public?"

"What?" she asked, before shifting gears back to the case. "What does it matter?"

"Humor me."

She looked at him, his expression serious.

"Distraction. So we'd go looking for a serial killer, instead of someone with motive."

"And what was his motive?"

"The money."

"Come on," he said, getting up.

"Where are we going?" she asked, letting him pull her to her feet.

"You still have the case files in the car, right?"

"Castle, we're off the case."

He ignored her as he jogged back into his house, found her keys laying on the end table by the front door.

"Castle," she asked again, following him out to the cruiser, "What is this about?"

He popped open the back seat, grabbed the purple folder with the case notes. "What would've happened if Moriety's plan had worked?"

"His plan?" she asked. She felt two steps behind as she stood by his side, looking down at the folder as he flipped back to the tumblr entries that they'd printed out.

"Yes, if this plan ... Yep, I was right ... if it had gone off as he'd laid it out? Where would we be?"

She looked back at him again, looking disheveled but not crazy. He obviously had a theory, and so she looked over the journal again.

They'd have found Peterson, of course, and started the whole investigation. Marshall too, the next day, when the Columbia kids had their warehouse party. Moriety would be buried in his garden, and Jameson would be dead in his cabin. With only two of the four men, they may not have made the connection back to Progesis. What about Irene?

"We'd be way behind," she said, "Irene would be dead, but since the Hamptons are out of our jurisdiction... and I wouldn't have a BOLO out for her ... we'd have no idea how she fit, no idea she was even dead. Maybe, if we're lucky, we're looking for Jameson and Moriety, but maybe not. So we're two days behind, one extra death, and no leads."

"No, we'd definitely be looking for all of them, but we'll get back to that..."

"Castle, just tell me the damned theory."

"No, I want to see if you see it too."

"That's not like you. You love telling me the story."

"No, this time I think someone else told the story. At least, it seems that way, to me. I want to see if you think the same."

She looked over the file again, not sure what he was seeing. But she had nothing.

"Why kill someone and leave their body for anyone to find?"

"We covered this - to distract us from the real motive."

"I mean in general."

"I don't know," she said, starting to think. "You're sending a message. You're a psychopath. You want to make it look like something else..."

She stopped. It didn't make a lot of sense. She shrugged.

"We agreed Clint did it for the money. So how does he get the money?"

"He's the next in line in the trust. Peterson and Jameson and the rest have to die."

"Not only do they have to die, but the law firm has to know they are dead..."

"Oh! That's what you meant about it being in public... if he kills them, but we don't know about it, then the funds stay with the trust, probably in probate."

"So he does it in public, makes the news, everything. No question they are dead, so he gets everything. He made very sure we'd know they were dead."

"That's why he did this," Kate said, holding up the folder. "He wanted us to find it and go hunt down Jameson and Moriety. And Irene. So that everything transfers to him. But it won't work."

"Why?" he asked, a small smirk on his face. She could tell he already knew why, and was enjoying the game.

"Because it's too suspicious. It would take some time, but we'd make the connection to him when all of a sudden he's billions of dollars richer. We wouldn't be able to arrest him, but we'd have enough to bring him in on suspicion and freeze his assets as a flight risk."

"How long would that take?"

She shrugged. "Few days to a week or so, I guess."

"So he's really only got a few days to play with."

"He doesn't have any days at all, Castle. Remember, he screwed up. He's dead."

"He's dead, but I don't think he screwed up."

"Are you going to explain?"

"Yes, but first you need to make a phone call."


	24. Of all the things we should've said

Of all the things we should've said,  
That were never said.  
All the things we should've done,  
That we never did.

All the things that you needed from me.  
All the things that you wanted for me.  
All the things that I should've given,  
But I didn't.  
-This Woman's Work, Kate Bush

* * *

"Castle, we can't get those without a subpoena, which we can't get because of my suspension."

Castle huffed, but a second latter, he was smiling again. "Okay, what about Espo, call him."

"Castle, if Ryan can't get the transcripts..."

"Not about that," he interrupted. "Espo knows that Air Traffic Controller, right? See if he can find a flight out of East Hampton Airport for today or tomorrow on Moriety's plane."

"You think he has one?"

"You think there is a billionaire that doesn't?"

"Wait, you think Irene is going somewhere? What does her taking a trip have to do with Clint?"

"Somewhere where we can't extradite her, once we all figure out that she's our killer."

Beckett stood up, pacing around the kitchen island. "Come on, Castle. She's lost her entire family, barely survived herself... now you want to accuse her of murder?"

"Think about it, Kate. What's the evidence around Clint Moriety?"

"The tumblr post."

"Which could come from anyone who was near Columbia."

"Access to Moriety's house."

"Which Irene also has..."

"And the Jameson cabin," she said, holding up her hand when Castle started to speak, "Yeah, that one Irene has too. But the Chemistry background? The pre-med stuff? Hating his father?"

"Which we can't or haven't verified yet. All we have is what we learned from Irene. And what would keep us from looking too closely? The fact that he's already dead. It's the Die Hard trick."

"The Die Hard ... oh! Steal $600 million, they will find you..." she said, then looked at him for a second, her eyes wide.

"...unless they already think you're dead," he finished for her.

"And we stopped looking at Moriety almost immediately because he died, and no one is looking at the money because we think the guy trying to steal it... shit." Castle watched as Beckett bounced around the room, putting the pieces together in her head. "Okay, calling..." she said, after a moment.

Kate hit a button her cell phone. She paced away from him as the call connected, and a second latter, he heard her talking to Esposito. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but in her tone, it was evident that her skepticism had burned away.

She turned back to him, phone still to her ear, and her other arm tucked up under her breasts. "He's checking," she said back to him. "But if you're right it may not matter... I'm not sure how to stop her. We're still suspended."

He nodded. "That's why she filed the lawsuit. She needed a way to stall us."

"Well, it's going to work..." she said, then stopped. She turned back to the phone. "You did? When? Okay, thanks Espo ... I gotta go ... "

Castle watched as Kate turned white, then nodded twice, slowly. "Ok, thanks Espo," she said, hanging up. But rather than turn back to Castle, she just stared at the phone for a long minute.

"Kate?"

Startled, she turned back to him, looking at him as if she was seeing him for the first time.

"Did Espo find anything?"

She shook her head, but then nodded. "Yes, um ... there is a plan filed for Moriety's plane to take one passenger to Bermuda, leaving in about forty-five minutes."

"Then let's go," he said, heading for the door, but Kate stood fixed in her spot.

"Kate?" He asked, looking back at her.

"Sorry, coming."

* * *

By time they got in the car, Kate seemed to have shaken off whatever Esposito had told her on the phone, but she was still quiet. She drove quickly, though legally, since she couldn't throw on the lights.

"What did Espo tell you?"

"Huh?"

"You've been in a daze since you spoke to Esposito. What is it?"

She shook her head, dismissing his question, but then stopped and sighed. "He and Ryan got pulled onto a case about some ex-banger who was found shot in an alley."

"Ok."

"The guy broke into Montgomery's house. They think his shooter is my sniper. Gates has a team going in after him now."

"Are you okay?"

"I have to be, don't I? Its out of my hands now. Weren't you the one saying I needed to rely on people?"

"Kate."

She blew a hard breath out as she turned down the long road to the airport.

"Sorry. I'm fine, I think. I just want to be there, you know? And I'm worried what Gates will do when she gets ahold of the whole thing."

"It'll be okay, Kate," he said, taking her hand over the console.

She shook her head, "You don't know that, Castle." But she didn't let go of his hand.

"It doesn't matter anyway," she said, turning into the gate to the tarmac. A single guard stood in front of the guardhouse, looking bored. "We're here."

She rolled down the window as the guard approached. "ID?" he asked, leaning down to face her. Castle reached in and grabbed his license after he saw Kate reach for her driver's license, rather than her badge. The both handed the slim cards over to the guard.

"I'm sorry, I don't see you as authorized for admission today."

Castle heard Beckett make a low grumble in her throat. Irene's plane would be taxiing out to the runway in the next few minutes. They had to get inside. Before he registered what she was doing, Kate had her badge out and was showing it to the guard.

"Detective Beckett, NYPD. I need to stop one of your flights."

"Last I checked, the NYPD didn't have jurisdiction over air travel, ma'am." He said, adding the last bit hesitantly.

"I do have jurisdiction to arrest a murderer before she leaves the country. Or do you want to explain why you aided and abetted a fugitive after I arrest you?"

The guard quickly handed back their licenses, stepped back, and came to attention, all at the same time, like he couldn't quite figure out what to do now that he was out of his league. Castle nearly chuckled when the young man almost saluted Beckett before raising the gate. Beckett gave a thin smile as thanks and slammed on the gas.

Kate drove quickly past a long line of parked helicopters. Castle knew from his own trips and from all of the recent community news that most of the airport's traffic was rotary. The airport had three runways, but only one long enough for a private jet, and Kate seemed to have pointed the car at a jet that was pulling out of the hanger, rather than the one taxiing towards the main runway.

"How do you know she's on that one?" he asked, pointing out the windshield.

"I don't. But if it's the other one, I don't have a way to stop it, short of parking the car in front of it and starting a giant TSA incident."

"Would it be the TSA or the FAA when the plane is on the ground?"

"Focus, Castle," she said, swinging the car around hard as she braked, causing it to come to a stop sideways in front of the long, three engine plane with a long red stripe that had just nosed out of the hangar. They both jumped out of the car, and Beckett ran around to stand in front of the plane as it stopped. Castle came around to stand beside her.

A window on the side of the cockpit slid open, and the Captain stuck his head out the window. "Are you two crazy? Move the damned car!"

"I need to arrest your passenger," Beckett yelled, holding up her badge.

"You need to arrest the mayor?"

"Weldon is onboard?"

"The former mayor, Bloomberg."

"This isn't James Moriety's plane?"

The Captain rolled his eyes. "That's the Moriety Lear." He pointed out the window behind Castle and Beckett. They turned to look where he was pointing.

Castle's heart sank. Behind them, the small jet's front wheel was just coming up off the runway as it took to the air. Although it was too far away, Castle could imagine seeing Irene's smug face as she looked out of one of the portholes, waving to them from her victory spot.

He looked over at Kate, who had a resigned look on her face.

They had lost.

Castle had no idea what else to do, so he reached out, took Kate's hand in his. They stood their, holding hands and staring as the Lear became nothing more than a shiny spot over the water.

"Hey! Are you going to move the car now?"

* * *

 **A/N:** Sorry for the horrific delay. I have to admit, my interest in Castle and fanfic has waned quite a bit in the last two months. The remainder of this story is written, but editing and posting isn't all that compelling. I hope to finish in the next few weeks. Bear with me.


	25. We found our way and blocked it out

And we drive away and head for south  
We found our way and blocked it out

Cry alone, and die alone  
Pray alone, and stay alone

You were burned out  
And had to stop before all hell broke  
And finally took its toll  
-Drown Out, Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova

* * *

Kate stood vaguely at attention in front of Gates' desk. Her Captain had been ranting for the past several minutes, ever since Beckett got back to the station house after nearly two days in the Hamptons. Kate knew she deserved it, but she couldn't quite bring herself to listen without getting angry, so she merely stood there and let her mind wander. Gates' chewouts didn't tend to be interactive anyway.

She wished Castle was there, at least to share in ... in the what? Blame? The scolding? She couldn't say what, exactly, only that she wanted him around. But he had to get to Alexis' graduation, so Kate found herself suffering alone. Probably for the better, from an objective point of view, since any Gates anger was typically doubled in her partner's presence. But her fingers twitched as they rested against the seam of her jeans, as if they wanted to reach out and take his hand of their own volition.

"...and then pulling your badge ... which you weren't authorized to use at the time... on the former mayor's private plane? What the hell were you thinking, Detective?"

Beckett startled after a second, finally realizing that the question wasn't rhetorical. "I thought it was more important to stop a killer before she escaped the country, sir, than worry about my current legal status, which I should point out should no longer be in effect since it was in response to a faulty lawsuit."

Kate had often wondered if Castle could spike Gates' blood pressure enough to make her head explode. It appeared, based on the look on the Captain's face, that Kate might be the one to actually trigger an explosion.

After a second, it passed, as Iron Gates iron constitution won back control. "Detective, in my precinct we use hard evidence to make our cases, not fanciful stories. And that's still all you have on Ms. Moriety..."

"Sir," Beckett interrupted, "the FBI and SEC confirmed that this week's stock market dip was attributed to a massive selloff on the Moriety, Peterson and other's portfolios, which were then transferred to Moriety's accounts before disappearing out of the country."

Gates blew out a hard breath before taking off her glasses. "Detective ... Kate," Gates said, seeming to change tack, "I agree with you, but the truth of the matter is, you have no case. We have no case. The DA is going to take one look at our actions, as well as the specter of the wrongful death suit, and run away from it as fast as she can, regardless of what evidence you get at this point. At let's not even mention that you allowed your chief suspect to wash evidence off before questioning, or that you gained access to East Hampton's airfield under false pretenses. Hell, the only good news I've gotten today is that Annapurna quietly lobbied to have the wrongful death suit dropped."

"So I'm off suspension?"

"Not even slightly," Gates said.

Beckett squeezed her hand into a fist. Oh how she wished Castle was around, if only to keep her from punching Gates. But the thought faded as Gates started into the second round of her rant.

* * *

Castle was distracted.

The principal was wrapping up, meaning that Alexis was about to give her speech, but Castle couldn't focus on the moment. He wanted to be with Kate, knowing that she was probably facing hell from the Captain. More precisely, he wanted to be with Kate, with Kate sitting beside him at the graduation, enjoying herself and neither of them getting chewed out at all.

Of course, even without the need to go to the station, Kate wouldn't have been at the graduation. Graduation was a family thing, and Kate wasn't. But he wanted her there anyway.

Castle's mind finally cleared as Alexis got up and gave her speech. He found himself wistful as Alexis spoke about the people in her life, in all lives, that leave a permanent mark, so that we carry something of them always.

Castle thought of Kate, not in the way Alexis had termed, "the small clear voices," but as something more active. He wasn't ready to carry Kate with him, because he wasn't ready to move on, as Alexis spoke of. What Alexis was describing was a goodbye, but Castle wasn't ready for goodbyes.

He wasn't sure he'd ever agree with Kate's logic to lock him out for a year, but he understood why it made sense to her. And he loved her enough to be able to put himself into her frame of mind and she what she'd done through her eyes. He could hear the small clear voices that must have echoed in her ears, heard what they would have said to her, and understood why they would have made sense of her nonsensical actions.

Their lives had become ironic, in the legitimate sense, not in any sort of ersatz Morisette's irony. She'd hurt him by trying to protect him, just as his attempt to pull her close had pushed her away. It was as if he'd gotten to participate in his own odd Gift of the Magi.

He let the thought fall away as Alexis finished her speech and gave him a slight wave. But part of it lingered. He wanted Kate to be there, next to him.

* * *

"...so however wrong the lawsuit was, you still acted multiple times without authority. So I'm leaving your suspension in place for a month."

Kate bit her lip and silently counted to ten. Part of her, a large part, wanted to take her badge and throw it in Gates' face. But she couldn't. She couldn't escape her own culpability in the mistakes of the case. So she shoved her anger down and took her punishment.

"I understand... sir. Is that all?"

Gates stared hard at her for a second, before she shoulder's slumped slightly. "No, Detective. Please sit down."

"Sir?"

Gates sat at her desk, "Kate... sit. Please."

Beckett shook her head, but it didn't clear up her confusion any. The change in tone had been startling. She pulled out on of the guest chairs and sat tentatively in front of the Captain's desk.

"I figure you've heard from Esposito and Ryan about their case?"

Kate shook her head. They boys had told her they were going after their suspect, who they thought was also her sniper. But there had been radio silence all morning since the raid was ordered. "Just the basics, sir."

"They were investigating the death of a former gang member named Oscar Costas. It appears that Costas had been hired to rob Captain's Montgomery's house, and was then killed afterwards by the man who shot you at the funeral."

Kate nodded slightly, feeling the normal turning of her stomach whenever her shooting came up.

"I sent Ryan and Esposito in with SWAT backup to apprehend the sniper, a man operating under the name Cole Maddox, despite Esposito's protests. They were able to recover records that had been stolen from the Montgomerys', but in an attempt to subdue Maddox, both Maddox and Sgt. Jefferson from SWAT were shot and the fell off the building where Maddox was staying. Kate, the man that shot you is dead."

Part of Kate felt relief, knowing he was no longer out there to stalk her, but part of her wondered if Maddox's death wasn't another Dick Coonan situation. Yet another dead lead.

But then the oddest sense of peace came over her. Her mother's case was out of her hands now. Maybe she'd be a part of it, maybe it would die with Cole Maddox. But the last few days had showed her she would have done something reckless in trying to bring Maddox in, had she not been tied up with Moriety, and she could now be faced with something much worse than a dead end.

Castle had been right. If her mother ever received justice, it would be through the work of the judicial process, not through a crusade on Kate's part.

"...and you are on suspension, so if I even get a hint that you are probing into Internal Affair's handling of this..."

Kate shook herself out of her thoughts. "You won't, sir. I won't be involved."

Gates looked surprised for a split second, but recovered. "Good. Then I will see you back here thirty days from today."

Kate nodded and stood up, conscious to leave her badge and gun on Gates' desk. With a nod, she turned and left.

She threw a quick look at her desk as she passed, but really just wanted to get out of the building quickly.

She wondered where she'd head now. But then she knew where she wanted to be, and left the building with a spring in her step.

* * *

Castle made the rounds, politely making small talk with parents of Alexis' friends as the young redhead hugged people and accepted congratulations from adult and classmate alike. He'd been a celebrity long enough that he could do glad handing rounds in his sleep. He figured that by now, whatever punishments Gates were going to deal out where dealt, and Beckett was off somewhere licking her wounds. He wondered when she'd text him to duck out on their date for the evening. If she even remembered their agreement, which felt like it had been made far longer than twenty four hours previous.

He wanted to hear from her, but not if she was simply going to cancel. But he knew what she was like,and knew that a dressing down would leave her wanting to be alone, so he knew he'd have to accept a night by himself. But he'd been looking forward to a date with her...

If that wasn't a clear sign that he was ready to forgive her and try again, he didn't know what was. He wasn't entirely sure she wouldn't hurt him, but he also knew that the heart wanted what the heart wanted.

And his heart wanted her.

Everything else, his claims that he needed time or whatever from her, where just noise. He would dive in with her because that's who he was and what he did, and because, when he listened to his inner voice, that's what he heard himself wanting.

"Dad, we're going to head to dinner now, okay? Could you..." Alexis asked, trailing off. He followed her eyes to the things in her hands.

"Take your robe and things home? Of course, sweetheart."

"Thanks, Dad," Alexis said, giving him a hug. "I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"Have fun, and don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Are there things you won't do?" His mother chimed in. He ignored her. He watched his daughter run off into a crowd of friends, wondering if her leaving was just a preview of the future.

Fifteen minutes later, he had his mother in a car off to the Hamptons, so he decided to take a walk through the city before the rains started. He strolled down Broadway, waiting for the phone in his pocket to vibrate, but it lay there, like a found pebble.

Every minute that passed was another one in which Kate hadn't cancelled their date, but didn't give him any relief. A lot had changed in the last few days, and he hadn't fully processed all of it. For all the relief he felt over having everything between him and Kate out in the open, he had no idea what changes it would bring. He trusted that something had changed in Kate, and he knew that something changed in him, but he was also old enough to know that intentions alone didn't guarantee success. Kate would still be Kate - closed off, tending to act off her own certainty, quicker to protect than to understand. And he'd still be himself - needy, overly willing to be pushed over, quick to be hurt. It probably wasn't the best combination.

But he wanted what he wanted. He wanted her. She wanted him. From that they would build and hope for the best.

But probably not tonight, he thought as he checked the rapidly darkening sky. Kate's mother's case had made a comeback in their life. They'd just had their biggest failed case as partners. They'd walked, run, and crawled through the emotional gauntlet, and some healing was necessary. And he knew, as well as he knew his own name, that Kate Beckett was like an animal when wounded. She'd crawl into a hole and be alone for a few days, and when he saw her again, he'd have to push to get her back to where she'd been in the Hamptons. He'd get her there, he was certain, if only because he was unwilling to fail now, but it would take time.

He had time. It wasn't like he hadn't already spent tons. What was a little more?

As he got a few blocks from Broome, he realized he hadn't timed it quite right as the sky opened and started pouring down on him. He broke out into a run, unwilling to bet on finding a cab for the four block run to his building. By the time he pushed through the revolving door into his lobby, he was half-drowned. Charlie, the doorman on duty gave him a chagrined smile and handed him a towel from behind the desk. Castle wiped off his face and hair quickly, then headed to the elevator. He'd definitely order pizza when he got to his apartment. Right after he changed.

He got out of the elevator to see a tall body leaning against his door. His distracted mind noted the bottle of wine in her hand before he fully realized who he was looking at.

"Kate?"

"Hey, Castle. Wanna start our date a bit early?"


	26. Things Could Be Stranger

Things could be stranger but I don't know how  
I'm going through changes now  
I've spent a lifetime trying to figure it out  
I'm going through changes now

And I've just begun  
Under a purple sun

There's many reasons we are what we become  
I'm going through changes, ripping out pages  
I'm going through changes now

-Changes, Langhorne Slim & The Law

* * *

Something caused him to wake. He looked around his empty bedroom, trying to place what. It was darker than normal, with the still pounding rain blocking any light from the street.

There was a noise again - a knock on the front door, and he crawled out of bed. He found his slacks, still slightly damp, on the floor by the side of the bed, and when he couldn't find his robe, he grabbed an old t-shirt from the dirty hamper by the door.

"Coming!" he yelled, fumbling as he pulled the shirt over his head.

Standing on the other side of Castle's door was a courier, holding a box similar to the ones he used to deliver a manuscript to his publisher. He reached for it.

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm supposed to deliver this to a Katherine Beckett."

Kate.

So it wasn't a dream.

"Um, yeah, just a sec. Kate!"

Kate Beckett came out of the kitchen, wearing his robe. Although tall, the robe still dwarfed her. She'd had to wrap the sash around herself twice. She looked younger, all of a sudden.

"I'm Kate Beckett," she said, and took the tablet the courier handed her, signing for her package. "How did you know I was here?"

"Just following our client's instructions, ma'am. I went where she told me to go." With that, he handed over the manuscript box and left.

She held in her hands for several seconds, staring at it while Castle stared at her. Then she lifted her head and gave him an inquiring look. He just shrugged in response.

"Hi," he said, breaking the silence.

She smiled shyly, but didn't respond for a moment, apparently just taking him in. Then she shook her head. "Should we?" she asked, nodding at the box.

"Let's go in the kitchen. Who knew you were here?"

"I have no more idea what is going on than you do, Castle."

"Whatever it is, I hope it doesn't prevent round two."

"Then let's see."

She placed the box softly down on the countertop. It was unmarked, and sealed with a single strip of tape that she cut open with one of his pairing knives. Without moving the box, she untucked the flaps and cautiously lifted the lid.

The box contained several manilla folders stuffed with papers, and a single charged flip-style cell phone. They both stared at the phone.

The phone rang.

She reached into the box and opened the phone. The number was blocked. She looked at Castle for confirmation, who nodded. She answered the phone.

"This is Beckett."

"Detective Beckett," came the voice of Irene Moriety, "I don't know whether I'm impressed or disappointed. Could you put me on speaker? I'd like to talk to you and Mr. Castle together."

Kate complied.

"You may think you've..." Kate started.

"...oh, detective, no," Irene interrupted. "Let's skip the empty threats, please. They make you sound stupid. And I so wanted to get this conversation off on the right foot."

"What do you want, Irene?" Castle asked.

"Well, mostly to apologize. I underestimated you. Or overestimated you. I'm not sure which, frankly. I have to say, you got further faster than I thought. I had to change my plans a bit because of you two."

"I'm so sorry we inconvenienced you," Beckett spit out.

"I think that's my line," Irene replied, ignoring the sarcasm. "I really didn't want to get you suspended, but it was necessary, after all. But I sincerely hope it doesn't hurt your career."

"You are a sociopath."

"Most psychologists prefer psychopath, actually, but I prefer pragmatist. Racing to the airport was a nice touch, I thought. You two, from what I've read of your files and things, tend to enjoy bringing a touch of Mr. Castle's writing into your case work. I thought you'd like that bit, but don't feel too bad - even if you'd stopped the plane, there was nothing of note on it. Dad's wasn't the only plane I had access to. Rich people love planes."

"So, what, you're just calling to apologize?"

"I recognize why that might be difficult to believe, but yes. To apologize. And to offer an olive branch. I saw that the NYPD killed the sniper that shot you."

"How did you find that out?" Beckett asked, as Castle looked at her. She shook her head. He nodded, understanding that she'd explain later.

"At a certain point, you get rich enough that you find the only thing left worth buying is information. One of the few things I learned from dear old Dad. The specific details don't really matter ... or rather, I'll leave it as an exercise for the two of you to fill in the dots. But you no longer have any leads in your mother's case, and I happen to owe you. So I figured I'd give you a hand."

Castle paused for a second, then reached for the papers in the box.

"Are you telling me..."

"Yes," Irene interrupted Kate again. "All the evidence you need to bring down your mother's killer and the conspiracy he's involved with."

"Why should I believe you?"

"You don't have to. Follow the evidence. You now know where to look, you'll find plenty of corroboration. Conspiracies always hang on the thinnest of threads. But if you really need a reason, I'll just say this; you'll be doing me a favor. My family no longer requires him. I no longer require him, so I'm perfectly happy letting you be the one that cuts his nuts off."

Castle flipped through the documents as Kate just stared at the phone.

"Anyway," Irene said, after a moment. "It was a pleasure meeting you both. You were almost a worthy adversary, which I can't really say about anyone, so thank you. And again, I do hope you continue the good work and that my little case doesn't set you back any. Say hi to Billy for me, when you see him. And call him Billy, he hates that."

And with that, she hung up.

Kate continued to stare at the phone, sitting open on the counter. She rested her weight on her arms. "Who is it?" she asked.

"What?"

"You're looking through the papers, Castle. Who is it?"

Castle flipped the folder shut, and handed it to her. "See for yourself."

Kate took the folder, but placed it on the counter.

"Tomorrow."

"Kate."

"Tomorrow, Castle. I'm on suspension. There isn't anything I can do about whatever is in there right now anyway. Weren't you the one who said I needed some perspective? Let's just ... tomorrow. We'll sit down, figure out what we need to do. Talk to the boys, get their opinion. Tonight... I want tonight to be about us, as much as it can be given ... that," she said, waving at the phone. "We still haven't seen either of the John Woo movies. Or had that wine I brought over. Or had round two."

"You sure?"

"No," she said, walking over and leaning against him. His arms came up around her waist.

"But I'm trying."

* * *

 **Author's note:** Obviously, finishing this years after starting it was not the plan. But over the course of writing this (and a few other stories), Castle went from being something I looked forward to every Monday night, to something I'd go weeks without seeing. I'm not sure I saw more than 3 episodes of the last two seasons, and only watched the last five minutes of the finale. I really enjoyed this fandom, but I wrote this story to see if I could write something a little more case-centric and thriller driven, not just a character exploration piece. It was originally supposed to be a 3-part story, where Kate's obsession with her mother's case was replaced with a shared chase for Irene Moriety. But obviously parts 2 and 3 are never going to be written. However, I found this final chapter when moving stuff to a new computer, so I felt I at least owed it to many of you to finish off at least one of the WIPs that I had open. Again, thank you to everyone in this fandom for several years of good stories, reviews, email exchanges, friendships, and the like. I wish you all the best.

-Blindgirl


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